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I am trying to study the locktime feature of transactions ( https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Protocol_specification#tx ). I have created some raw transactions in the testnet with different locktimes, but, when I send them, they are confirmed as usual. I have also been able to spend the just sent coins immediately. When I dump the block, the locktime field looks correct.

How is the locktime checked when confirming a transaction? Can someone point me to the piece of the code that does the checking?

Or am I wrong and locktime is really not implemented?

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It's checked in the IsFinal() method of CTransaction. A non-final transaction cannot be included in blocks.

A transaction is final if either:

  • The lock time is in the past.
  • All of the inputs have sequence numbers equal to UINT_MAX.

The second one is probably what confused you.

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  • Thank you! I hadn't checked that. Still, I have just sent a transaction with both sequence number smaller than UINT_MAX and a locktime greater than 0 and spent it right away. I will revise IsFinal() to check what is wrong...
    – halftimepad
    Commented Dec 26, 2012 at 22:07
  • Done. I was using a wrong locktime. It must be an absolute time with UNIX timestamp format.
    – halftimepad
    Commented Jan 6, 2013 at 23:35

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