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Basic Types

Solidity contains most of the basic types you are used to from other languages, but their properties and usage are often a little different than other languages and are likely much more restrictive. In particular, Solidity is a very explicit language and will not allow you to make inferences most of the time.

Objectives​

By the end of this lesson you should be able to:

  • Categorize basic data types
  • List the major differences between data types in Solidity as compared to other languages
  • Compare and contrast signed and unsigned integers

Common Properties​

In Solidity, types must always have a value and are never undefined, null, or none. Because of this, each type has a default value. If you declare a variable without assigning a value, it will instead have the default value for that type. This property can lead to some tricky bugs until you get used to it.

uint defaultValue;
uint explicitValue = 0;

// (defaultValue == explicitValue) <-- true

Types can be cast from one type to another, but not as freely as you may expect. For example, to convert a uint256 into a int8, you need to cast twice:

uint256 first = 1;
int8 second = int8(int256(first));
danger

Overflow/underflow protection (described below), does not provide protection when casting.

uint256 first = 256;
int8 second = int8(int256(first)); // <- The value stored in second is 0

Boolean​

Booleans can have a value of true or false. Solidity does not have the concept of truthy or falsey, and non-boolean values cannot be cast to bools by design. The short conversation in this issue explains why, and explains the philosophy why.

Logical Operators​

Standard logical operators (!, &&, ||, ==, !=) apply to booleans. Short-circuiting rules do apply, which can sometimes be used for gas savings since if the first operator in an && is false or || is true, the second will not be evaluated. For example, the following code will execute without an error, despite the divide by zero in the second statement.

// Bad code for example.  Do not use.
uint divisor = 0;
if(1 < 2 || 1 / divisor > 0) {
    // Do something...
}

You cannot use any variant of > or < with booleans, because they cannot be implicitly or explicitly cast to a type that uses those operators.

Numbers​

Solidity has a number of types for signed and unsigned integers, which are not ignored as much as they are in other languages, due to potential gas-savings when storing smaller numbers. Support for fixed point numbers is under development, but is not fully implemented as of version 0.8.17.

Floating point numbers are not supported and are not likely to be. Floating precision includes an inherent element of ambiguity that doesn't work for explicit environments like blockchains.

Min, Max, and Overflow​

Minimum and maximum values for each type can be accessed with type(<type>).min and type(<type>).max. For example, type(uint).min is 0, and type(uint).max is equal to 2^256-1.

An overflow or underflow will cause a transaction to revert, unless it occurs in a code block that is marked as unchecked.

uint vs. int​

In Solidity, it is common practice to favor uint over int when it is known that a value will never (or should never) be below zero. This practice helps you write more secure code by requiring you to declare whether or not a given value should be allowed to be negative. Use uint for values that should not, such as array indexes, account balances, etc. and int for a value that does need to be negative.

Integer Variants​

Smaller and larger variants of integers exist in many languages but have fallen out of favor in many instances, in part because memory and storage are relatively cheap. Solidity supports sizes in steps of eight from uint8 to uint256, and the same for int.

Smaller sized integers are used to optimize gas usage in storage operations, but there is a cost. The EVM operates with 256 bit words, so operations involving smaller data types must be cast first, which costs gas.

uint is an alias for uint256 and can be considered the default.

Operators​

Comparisons (<=, <, ==, !=, >=, >) and arithmetic (+, -, *, /, %, **) operators are present and work as expected. You can also use bit and shift operators.

uint and int variants can be compared directly, such as uint8 and uint256, but you must cast one value to compare a uint to an int.

uint first = 1;
int8 second = 1;

if(first == uint8(second)) {
    // Do something...
}

Addresses​

The address type is a relatively unique type representing a wallet or contract address. It holds a 20-byte value, similar to the one we explored when you deployed your Hello World contract in Remix. address payable is a variant of address that allows you to use the transfer and send methods. This distinction helps prevent sending Ether, or other tokens, to a contract that is not designed to receive it. If that were to happen, the Ether would be lost.

Addresses are not strings and do not need quotes when represented literally, but conversions from bytes20 and uint160 are allowed.

address existingWallet = 0xd9145CCE52D386f254917e481eB44e9943F39138;

Members of Addresses​

Addresses contain a number of functions. balance returns the balance of an address, and transfer, mentioned above, can be used to send ether.

function getBalance(address _address) public view returns(uint) {
    return _address.balance;
}

Later on, you'll learn about call, delegatecall, and staticcall, which can be used to call functions deployed in other contracts.

Contracts​

When you declare a contract, you are defining a type. This type can be used to instantiate one contract as a local variable inside a second contract, allowing the second to interact with the first.

Byte Arrays and Strings​

Byte arrays come as both fixed-size and dynamically-sized. They hold a sequence of bytes. Arrays are a little more complicated than in other languages and will be covered in-depth later.

Strings​

Strings are arrays in Solidity, not a type. You cannot concat them with +, but as of 0.8.12, you can use string.concat(first, second). They are limited to printable characters and escaped characters. Casting other data types to string is at best tricky, and sometimes impossible.

Generally speaking, you should be deliberate when working with strings inside of a smart contract. Don't be afraid to use them when appropriate, but if possible, craft and display messages on the front end rather than spending gas to assemble them on the back end.

Enums​

Enums allow you to apply human-readable labels to a list of unsigned integers.

enum Flavors { Vanilla, Chocolate, Strawberry, Coffee }

Flavors chosenFlavor = Flavors.Coffee;

Enums can be explicitly cast to and from uint, but not implicitly. They are limited to 256 members.

Constant and Immutable​

The constant and immutable keywords allow you to declare variables that cannot be changed. Both result in gas savings because the compiler does not need to reserve a storage slot for these values.

As of 0.8.17, constant and immutable are not fully implemented. Both are supported on value types, and constant can also be used with strings.

Constant​

Constants can be declared at the file level, or at the contract level. In Solidity, modifiers come after the type declaration. You must initialize a value when declaring a constant. Convention is to use SCREAMING_SNAKE_CASE for constants.

uint constant NUMBER_OF_TEAMS = 10;

contract Cars {
    uint constant NUMBER_OF_CARS = 20;
}

At compilation, the compiler replaces every instance of the constant variable with its literal value.

Immutable​

The immutable keyword is used to declare variables that are set once within the constructor, which are then never changed:

contract Season {
    immutable numberOfRaces;

    constructor(uint _numberOfRaces) {
        numberOfRaces = _numberOfRaces;
    }
}

Conclusion​

You've learned the usage and some of the unique quirks of common variable types in Solidity. You've seen how overflow and underflow are handled and how that behavior can be overridden. You've learned why unsigned integers are used more commonly than in other languages, why floats are not present, and have been introduced to some of the quirks of working with strings. Finally, you've been introduced to the address and contract data types.

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