Smart contract annotations

Smart contract functions are annotated depending on the activity they perform. These annotations are checked at compile time.

A function definition or prototype can only be annotated once. Attempting to use more than annotation in a function will raise a compile-time error.

@init

The @init function defines a contract constructor that sets the state of the contract prior to any operations performed on it. It is called once and once only on contract initialisation/deployment. The name of the @init function can be anything at all.

For example, the following function initialises a contract by creating a State type to represent the owner's account which then receives an initial supply of FET tokens.

@init
function initialise(owner: Address)

    var INITIAL_SUPPLY = 100000000000u64;
    var account = State<UInt64>("owner");
    account.set(INITIAL_SUPPLY);

endfunction

function main()

    var owner = Address("2ifr5dSFRAnXexBMC3HYEVp3JHSuz7KBPXWDRBV4xdFrqGy6R9");
    initialise(owner);

endfunction

Only one @init function per contract is allowed; attempting to define more than one will raise a compile-time error. It must take no arguments or only an Address, and its return type must be either void or Int64.

Remember

We use main() in the examples to allow for testing smart contract code outside of a ledger environment.

@action

The @action annotation signifies a function which performs a transaction.

A smart contract must have one or more functions annotated with @action. In order for a function to be callable from other smart contracts, it must be annotated with @action, otherwise it will be effectively considered private.

You cannot run an etch smart contract on the Python Ledger API without an @action function and it is these functions that trigger the charging rules for data persistence fees.

An @action return type must be either void or Int64.

The following function performs a transaction between two parties. In the worst case, this function needs two shards for data storage.

@action
function transfer(from: Address, to: Address, amount: UInt64)

    var from_balance = State<UInt64>(from); 
    from_balance.set(1000u64);
    var to_balance = State<UInt64>(to);
    to_balance.set(0u64);

    // check if all the conditions are valid
    if (from_balance.get() <= amount)
        panic("Argh!");
    endif

    from_balance.set(from_balance.get() - amount);
    to_balance.set(to_balance.get() + amount);

endfunction

function main()

    var owner = Address("2ifr5dSFRAnXexBMC3HYEVp3JHSuz7KBPXWDRBV4xdFrqGy6R9");
    var user = Address("2ifr5dSFRAnXexBMC3HYEVp3JHSuz7KBPXWDRBV4xdFrqGy6R9");
    transfer(owner, user, 100u64);

endfunction

@query

Query functions are read-only functions that allow you to view data residing on the ledger. Their return type can not be void.

The following function queries the balance of an Address.

@query
function balance(address : Address) : UInt64

    var account = State<UInt64>(address);
    account.set(100u64);
    return account.get();

endfunction

function main()

    var owner = Address("2ifr5dSFRAnXexBMC3HYEVp3JHSuz7KBPXWDRBV4xdFrqGy6R9");
    var owner_balance = balance(owner);
    printLn(owner_balance);

endfunction