Get block height from database snapshot, without running a node

Question

I have synced a Substrate-based parachain (Moonbase Alpha) and stopped the node to take a snapshot of the database directory. I would like to know what's the best block (block height, last finalized block) of this snapshot, but without running a node again with that data, only with the database itself.

Is there a way to read information directly from the database, without a separate process? Or at least more minimal process so not to require a complete node operating on the DB to discover the block height?

Thanks in advance

Answer 1

Is there a way to read information directly from the database, without a separate process?

It is always possible to reverse engineer the client db storage to read directly https://github.com/paritytech/substrate/blob/9461b2de04210c6c193726a745c3ec6552b4ce9f/client/db/src/utils.rs#L509 but then you need to decode the header manually, and it is not future proof. (and utils to read either db content will spawn a process).

Minimal process could be interesting though, I think adding a cli command to display chain info would be the easiest direction (calling fn info from HeaderBackend with a new command in crate sc-cli).