Block States

Introduction #

Sourced by Bedrock Commands Community Discord

Block States or Block Properties are additional data that defines how the block appears or behaves. Such as the direction it is facing, it's color, it's variant, whether it is powered or unpowered and so on.

This is used in a multitude of commands such as /clone, /execute, /fill, /setblock and /testforblock

In Bedrock Edition we used Aux values (also known as Metadata) to define a block. However; as of 1.19.70 and beyond this is no longer supported and have been fully replaced with Block States instead.

#Aux Value Example:
/setblock ~ ~ ~ wool 1
#It's Block State equivalent:
/setblock ~ ~ ~ wool ["color"="orange"]

• Any command block using aux values will continue to function as it is however block states will need to be adopted when updating them.
• Similarly any commands using aux values in behaviour or function packs with min_engine_version 1.19.63 or below will also continue to function however block states must be adopted if the min_engine_version is updated to 1.19.70 or above.

Block State Examples & Syntax #

/setblock ~ ~ ~ wool ["color"="white"]
/setblock ~ ~ ~ wheat ["growth"=0]
/setblock ~ ~ ~ wood ["wood_type"="birch","stripped_bit"=true]
/setblock ~ ~ ~ wool []

• Block states are enclosed in square brackets [ ]
• When specifying multiple block states a comma , is used to separate them.
• Quotation marks " " are used around strings such as "birch", "spruce" etc..
• Integer values 0, 1, 2.. and boolean values true/false do not use quotation marks.
• Leaving the brackets blank is also a correct syntax, it will simply default to 0.
• wool 0 is white wool hence you may simply write it as wool [] instead of wool ["color"="white"]

Notes For Beginners #

• Integers are whole numbers. They are used to define a block from a 'range' of values.

  • Example: Redstone power 1 to 15
  • ["redstone_power"=10]

• Boolean is a programming term which refers to true/false values. You can simply understand it as yes or no questions.

  • Is this piston powered? yes/no
  • Is this button pressed? yes/no
  • Is this log stripped? yes/no
  • ["stripped_bit"=true]

• Strings are unique 'text' inputs. You can simply understand it as multiple choice questions.

  • What color is this wool? "white", "orange", "brown" etc..
  • What wood type is this log? "spruce", "birch", "acacia" etc..
  • ["wood_type"="spruce"]

Block States List #

A list of all the block states currently available within Bedrock can be found at: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/minecraft/creator/reference/content/blockreference/examples/blockstateslist

Note: In the site block states may be written as one word but make sure to separate them with underscores _ when typing in commands.

Example: buttonPressedBit → "button_pressed_bit"

Converting Aux Values to Block States #

For your convenience; download any of the excel sheet below to find the full list of block IDs, their aux values and equivalent block states in Bedrock. Shared by kayla@Mojang

Note: the above sheet was quickly generated and contains some minor errors. Boolean values 0 should be replaced with false and 1 should be replaced with true since the game doesn't recognize the syntax otherwise.

Alternate sheet: Shared by @ItsRichHeart

You may also use this Lookup Table instead not needing to download any files.

Known Issue #

Detecting blocks using commands such as /execute or /testforblock requires all or none of the block states specified else the command returns an error.

Example; detecting a pressed stone button on ground facing up:

#✅ Accepted:
/execute if block ~~~ stone_button [“button_pressed_bit”=true,”facing_direction”=1] run say success
/execute if block ~~~ stone_button run say success

# ❌ Not Accepted:
/execute if block ~~~ stone_button [“button_pressed_bit”=true] run say success
/execute if block ~~~ stone_button [“facing_direction”=1] run say success

From the above code, we can see that, though block states have replaced aux values, we still cannot detect blocks based on only the specific block states needed to test like we do in the case of entities using selector arguments.

Related Bug Reports #

• MCPE-133360
• MCPE-168391