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Elixir Ethers

Ethers is a comprehensive Web3 library for interacting with smart contracts on the Ethereum (Or any EVM based blockchain) using Elixir.

Heavily inspired by the ethers.js, Ethers leverages the amazing Elixir meta-programming capabilities to generate Elixir modules for give smart contracts from their ABI. It also generates beautiful documentation for those modules which can further help in development.

Installation

You can install the package by adding ethers to the list of dependencies in your mix.exs file::

def deps do
  [
    {:ethers, "~> 0.0.6"}
  ]
end

The complete documentation is available on hexdocs.

Configuration

To use Elixir Ethers, ensure you have a configured JSON-RPC endpoint. Configure the endpoint using the following configuration parameter.

# config.exs
config :ethers,
  rpc_client: Ethereumex.HttpClient, # Defaults to: Ethereumex.HttpClient
  keccak_module: ExKeccak, # Defaults to: ExKeccak
  json_module: Jason # Defaults to: Jason

# If using Ethereumex, you need to specify a JSON-RPC server url here
config :ethereumex, url: "[URL_HERE]"

You can use Cloudflare's Ethereum Gateway https://cloudflare-eth.com/v1/mainnet for the RPC URL.

For more configuration options, refer to ethereumex.

To send transactions, you need a wallet client capable of signing transactions and exposing a JSON-RPC endpoint.

Usage

To use Elixir Ethers, you must have your contract's ABI in json format, which can be obtained from etherscan.io. This library also contains standard contract interfaces such as ERC20, ERC721 and some more by default (refer to built-in contracts in hex-doc).

Create a module for your contract as follows:

defmodule MyERC20Token do
  use Ethers.Contract, 
    abi_file: "path/to/abi.json", 
    default_address: "[Token address here (optional)]"
end

Calling contract functions

After defining the module, all the functions can be called like any other Elixir module. The documentation is also available giving the developer a first-class experience.

# Calling functions on the blockchain
iex> MyERC20Token.balance_of("0xc02aaa39b223fe8d0a0e5c4f27ead9083c756cc2")
{:ok, [654294510138460920346]}

# Get the documentation of a function
iex> h MyERC20Token.balance_of
                     def balance_of(owner, overrides \\ [])

  @spec balance_of(Ethers.Types.t_address(), Keyword.t()) ::
          {:ok, [non_neg_integer()]}
          | {:ok, Ethers.Types.t_hash()}
          | {:ok, Ethers.Contract.t_function_output()}
          | {:error, term()}

Executes balanceOf(address _owner) on the contract.

Default action for this function is `:call`. To override default action see
Execution Options in Ethers.Contract.

## Parameters

  • _owner: `:address`
  • overrides: Overrides and options for the call. See Execution Options in
    Ethers.Contract.

## Return Types

  • {:uint, 256}

Sending transaction

Sending transactions is also straightforward, as Elixir Ethers automatically determines whether a function is a view function or a state-changing function, using eth_call or eth_sendTransaction accordingly. You can override this behavior with the :action override.

Ensure that you specify a from option to inform your client which account to use:

iex> MyERC20Token.transfer("0x[Recipient Address Here]", Ethers.Utils.to_wei(1), from: "0x[Your address here]")
{:ok, "0xf313ff7ff54c6db80ad44c3ad58f72ff0fea7ce88e5e9304991ebd35a6e76000"}

Getting Logs (Events)

Elixir Ethers provides functionality for creating event filters and fetching events from the RPC endpoint using eth_getLogs. Each contract in Ethers generates an EventFilters module (e.g. MyERC20Token.EventFilters) that can be used to create filters for events.

To create an event filter and use the Ethers.get_logs/3 function, follow this example:

iex> filter = MyERC20Token.EventFilters.transfer("0x[From Address Here]", nil)

# Also `nil` can be used for a parameter in EventFilters functions to show that it should not be filtered.
# Then you can simply list the logs.

iex> Ethers.get_logs(filter)
{:ok,
 [
   %Ethers.Event{
     address: "0x5883c66ca442461d406f330775d42954bfcf7d92",
     block_hash: "0x83de67fd285067b838790406ea68f21a3afbc0ade534047725b5ccfb904c9ed3",
     block_number: 17077047,
     topics: ["Transfer(address,address,uint256)",
      "0x6b75d8af000000e20b7a7ddf000ba900b4009a80",
      "0x230507f6a391ae5ac0ec124f1c5b8ce454fe3f3d"],
     topics_raw: ["0xddf252ad1be2c89b69c2b068fc378daa952ba7f163c4a11628f55a4df523b3ef",
      "0x0000000000000000000000006b75d8af000000e20b7a7ddf000ba900b4009a80",
      "0x000000000000000000000000230507f6a391ae5ac0ec124f1c5b8ce454fe3f3d"],
     transaction_hash: "0xaa6fb2e1bbb27f667e76b03e8cde23db694207e06b9aa810d4c20c1f109a58e5",
     transaction_index: 0,
     data: [761112156078097834180608],
     log_index: 0,
     removed: false
   },
   %Ethers.Event{...},
    ...
 ]}

Resolving Ethereum names (ENS domains) using Ethers

To resolve ENS or any other name service provider in the blockchain you can simply use the Ethers.NameService module.

iex> Ethers.NameService.resolve("vitalik.eth")
{:ok, "0xd8da6bf26964af9d7eed9e03e53415d37aa96045"}

Contributing

All contributions to this project are very welcome. Please feel free to open issues and push PRs and even share your suggestions.

To run the tests locally, you need to run ganache. After installing ganache, just run the following in a new window the you can run the tests on the same machine.

> ganache --wallet.deterministic

Acknowledgements

This project was not possible if it was not for the great :ex_abi library and its contributors.

Also a special thanks to the authors and contributors of :ethereumex library.

License

Apache License 2.0