How to get available block types and set block orientation?

[javier-cantu]

Hello,

I have successfully placed blocks using the following command:

mc.setBlock("obsidian", pos)

I have two questions:

Is there any command or method available to get a list of all the block types that I can use with setBlock()? Because now I can't use numbers to guess.

How can I place blocks that need to face a specific direction, such as stairs? Is there a way to specify the orientation when placing these blocks?

Thank you for your help!

[javier-cantu]

I used a Python script to open the minecraft.jar file and retrieve all the available blocks from the blockstates folder. I extracted the list of blocks and printed them to see what's available. However, even though I have the list, I haven't been able to orient blocks like stairs in any direction other than the default (north), and I'm struggling to change their orientation.

After all that, I found this URL with all the block data values: https://minecraft.wiki/w/Java_Edition_data_values/Blocks, which had everything I was looking for that I somehow missed earlier! Haha.

[icezyclon]

Hi there 👋

Regarding the block list:
Great you found the blocks already, I would have also recommended to read them from your version in the client.jar at assets/minecraft/blockstates.

For example, on Ubuntu/Linux with the Prism Launcher, the blocks would be at:
~/.local/share/PrismLauncher/libraries/com/mojang/minecraft/[version]/minecraft-[version]-client.jar/assets/minecraft/blockstates

Or on Windows with the Legacy Minecraft Launcher, the blocks would be at:
%appdata%\.minecraft\versions\[version]\[version].jar\assets\minecraft\blockstates

This does potentially not include blocks added with mods, which can be placed with their namespace and block id, e.g., mod_name:block_id.

I believe this would make a great feature to query all available blocks directly using mcpq, I'll add it to the next protocol version 👍

Regarding the block orientation:
Setting the block states/properties is not natively supported at the moment!
This is the next major point in the library that I want to add, as it is so important (in addition to setting nbt/component, which is also missing)!

Block orientation is block states, which I would recommend to set with a command explicitly at the moment:

pos = Vec3(<x>, <y>, <z>).floor()
mc.runCommand(f"setblock {pos.x} {pos.y} {pos.z} minecraft:spruce_stairs[facing=south]")

This is somewhat unfortunate as it is much more complicated than it has to be, but you could put this into a new function like so:

def build(world, block, pos, states: dict[str, str] | None = None):
    pos = pos.floor()
    if states is None:
        world.setBlock(block, pos)
    else:
        states_list = ",".join(f"{key}={val}" for key,val in states.items())
        world.runCommand(f"setblock {pos.x} {pos.y} {pos.z} {block}[{states_list}]")

build(mc, "spruce_stairs", pos)
build(mc, "spruce_stairs", pos, {"facing": "east", "waterlogged": "true"})

This way you could call it with a dict of property values and use it as a replacement for regular setBlock.

Most things that are currently missing can be simulated using /-commands in this way, until they are natively supported by the protocol.
Hope this helps for the moment!

PS: For example, the same method is used to implement the world.setBed function at the moment.
PPS: You can read the available block states of any given block using the F3 menu in game or at the wiki.

[javier-cantu]

Perfect, I'll be using runCommand() to build for now.
Thank you!!

[icezyclon]

Update:
Since version 2.0.0 both of your questions can be done natively!

• Query block types from the server with mc.blocks (docs)
• Read the component data (for blocks in version 1.20.5+) with mc.getBlockWithData(pos) (docs)
• Write blocks with component data (for blocks in version 1.20.5+) with mc.setBlock(block, pos) (docs)

from mcpq import Minecraft, Vec3
mc = Minecraft()
block = mc.blocks.getById("acacia_stairs").withData({"waterlogged": True, "facing": "east"})
mc.setBlock(block, mc.getPlayer().pos)

Took a while but it's here at last 😉

[icezyclon]

I will close this issue for now, feel free to re-open this issue or open a new issue if you have any more questions! 👍