public BigInteger getDifficultyTargetAsInteger ( ) throws VerificationException { BigInteger target = Utils . decodeCompactBits ( difficultyTarget ) ; if ( target . signum ( ) <= 0 || target . compareTo ( params . maxTarget ) > 0 ) throw new VerificationException ( "Difficulty target is bad: " + target . toString ( ) ) ; return target ; }
Returns the difficulty target as a 256 bit value that can be compared to a SHA - 256 hash . Inside a block the target is represented using a compact form . If this form decodes to a value that is out of bounds an exception is thrown .