Bitcoin address validation

2012-12-14 R.R. Nederhoed https://github.com/nederhoed/python-bitcoinadress Please give feedback.

Original author probably: http://paddy3118.blogspot.nl/2012/11/some-identities-for-python-inttobytes.html

Copied from: http://rosettacode.org/wiki/Bitcoin/address_validation#Python

I packaged it to be available to everyone via The Cheese Shop (pypi): http://pypi.python.org/pypi/python-bitcoinaddress

If you use this module, support me with bitcoins! Any amount is appreciated. 1qYsJbtEWAeXMsbgxUgGsJsAp3VArsBRd

• Add support for validating BECH32 addresses (often called "Segwit addresses")
• Switch to using a boolean to specify testnet instead of asking user to know magicbytes

• Changed testnet support in a way that all altcoin addresses can be validated (thanks to Frederico Reiven, cheers mate!)

• Added support for validating testnet addresses.

• Invalidate addresses with non-base58 characters Leading or trailing spaces will invalidate your address. Strip them before validating the address.

• Renamed the check_bc function to validate for ease of use.
• Added check if the base58-re-encoded address matches the original address Relevant for short addresses with a valid check, but invalid format. For example: 14oLvT2 The valid version of that address is: 1111111111111111111114oLvT2
• Added alternatives for long.to_bytes and long.from_bytes for Python versions prior to 3.2
• Added unit tests