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Appendix A: web3.js tutorial

web3.js contract basic interaction in a non-blocked (async) fashion

Description

This script is for educational use and is based on web3@1.0.0-beta.29 web3.js version.

It is intended as an introduction to web3.js.

The web3.js library is a collection of modules which contain specific functionality for the Ethereum ecosystem.

The web3.js object is an umbrella package to house all Ethereum-related modules.

This is the Ethereum compatible JavaScript API, which implements the Generic JSON RPC spec.

It run in a non-blocked (async) mode to accommodate in many of the methods provided by web3.js

The most remarkable thing about this script is that you don’t need to run your own local node to use it, because it uses the Infura services.

Prepare the environment

To see this script in action you should follow this simple steps.

Check you have a valid npm version

$ npm -v
5.6.0

If you don’t have already done, initialize your package

$ npm init

Install basic dependences

npm i command-line-args
npm i web3
npm i node-rest-client-promise

This will update your package.json configuration file with your new dependences.

Node.js script execution

Basic execution

code/web3js/web3-contract-basic-interaction.js

Use your own Infura Token

code/web3js/web3-contract-basic-interaction.js --infuraFileToken /path/to/file/with/infura_token

or

code/web3js/web3-contract-basic-interaction.js /path/to/file/with/infura_token

web3 provider

We use web3.js Web3 object to obtain a basic web3 provider.

var web3 = new Web3(infura_host);

Let’s do some basic interactions at web3 level

Let’s see the Protocol Version.

web3.eth.getProtocolVersion().then(function(protocolVersion) {
      console.log(`Protocol Version: ${protocolVersion}`);
  })

Now I’m curious about the current gas price.

web3.eth.getGasPrice().then(function(gasPrice) {
      console.log(`Gas Price: ${gasPrice}`);
  })

And, Whats the last mined block in my chain?

web3.eth.getBlockNumber().then(function(blockNumber) {
      console.log(`Block Number: ${blockNumber}`);
  })

Now let’s dive into some basics actions with a contract

First things first, let’s initialize our contract address.

var our_contract_address = "0xd0A1E359811322d97991E03f863a0C30C2cF029C";

Let’s see its balance.

web3.eth.getBalance(our_contract_address).then(function(balance) {
      console.log(`Balance of ${our_contract_address}: ${balance}`);
})

Now let’s see its byte code.

web3.eth.getCode(our_contract_address).then(function(code) {
      console.log(code);
})

Now we are going to deal with the contract

We prepare our environment to interact with the Etherscan explorer API.

Let’s initialize our contract url in the Etherscan explorer API for the Kovan chain.

var etherscan_url = `http://kovan.etherscan.io/api?module=contract&action=getabi&address=${our_contract_address}`

And now get a rest client to operate with.

var client = require('node-rest-client-promise').Client();

Let’s get a client promise.

client.getPromise(etherscan_url)

And once we got a valid client promise, then we can use it.

Now we get here our contract ABI from the client promise (from the Etherscan explorer).

.then((client_promise) => {
  our_contract_abi = JSON.parse(client_promise.data.result);

And now we create our contract object as a promise to consume later.

  return new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
      var our_contract = new web3.eth.Contract(our_contract_abi, our_contract_address);
      try {
        // If all goes well
        resolve(our_contract);
      } catch (ex) {
        // If something goes wrong
        reject(ex);
      }
    });
})

If our contract promise return well let’s consume it.

.then((our_contract) => {

Let’s see our contract address.

console.log(`Our Contract address:  ${our_contract._address}`);

or in this other way.

console.log(`Our Contract address in other way:  ${our_contract.options.address}`);

Now our contract abi.

console.log("Our contract abi: " + JSON.stringify(our_contract.options.jsonInterface));

This is turning more interesting, let’s see what’s going on with our contract

Now let’s see our contract total supply in a callback fashion;

our_contract.methods.totalSupply().call(function(err, totalSupply) {
    if (!err) {
        console.log(`Total Supply with a callback:  ${totalSupply}`);
    } else {
        console.log(err);
    }
});

Or you can use the returned Promise instead of passing in the callback;

our_contract.methods.totalSupply().call().then(function(totalSupply){
    console.log(`Total Supply with a promise:  ${totalSupply}`);
}).catch(function(err) {
    console.log(err);
});

web3.js contract synchronous interaction using async/await

Description

This script is for educational use and is based on web3@1.0.0-beta.29 web3.js version.

It should be see as an introduction to web3.js.

The web3.js library is a collection of modules which contain specific functionality for the Ethereum ecosystem.

The web3.js object is an umbrella package to house all Ethereum related modules.

This is the Ethereum compatible JavaScript API which implements the Generic JSON RPC spec.

It run in a blocked (async/await) mode to move the reader away from the hell of the Promises as long as their version of Node.js or JavaScript allows it.

The most remarkable thing about this script is that you don’t need to run your own local node to use it, because it use the Infura services.

Prepare the environment

To see this script in action you should follow this simple steps.

Check you have a valid npm version

$ npm -v
5.6.0

If you don’t have already done, initialize your package

$ npm init

Install basic dependences

npm i web3
npm i node-rest-client-promise

This will update your package.json cofiguracion file with your new dependences.

Node.js script execution

Execution example;

code/web3js/./web3-contract-basic-interaction-async-await.js

web3 provider

We use web3.js Web3 object to obtain a basic web3 provider.

var web3 = new Web3(infura_host);

Let’s do some basic interactions at web3 level

Let’s get the Protocol Version.

var protocolVersion = await web3.eth.getProtocolVersion();

Now I’m curious about the current gas price.

var gasPrice = await web3.eth.getGasPrice();

And, Whats the last mined block in my chain?

var blockNumber = await web3.eth.getBlockNumber();

Now let’s dive into some basics actions with a contract

First things first, let’s initialize our contract address.

var our_contract_address = "0xd0A1E359811322d97991E03f863a0C30C2cF029C";

Let’s get its balance.

var balance = await web3.eth.getBalance(our_contract_address);

Now let’s get its byte code.

var code = await web3.eth.getCode(our_contract_address);

Now we are going to deal with the contract

We prepare our environment to interact with the Etherscan explorer API.

Let’s initialize our contract url in the Etherscan explorer API for the Kovan chain.

var etherscan_url = `http://kovan.etherscan.io/api?module=contract&action=getabi&address=${our_contract_address}`

And now get a rest client to operate with.

var client = require('node-rest-client-promise').Client();

Let’s get the client response.

var etherscan_response = await client.getPromise(etherscan_url)

Now we get here our contract ABI from the client response (from the Etherscan explorer).

our_contract_abi = JSON.parse(etherscan_response.data.result);

Let’s instantiate our contract object

var our_contract = await new web3.eth.Contract(our_contract_abi, our_contract_address);

Let’s see our contract address.

console.log(`Our Contract address:  ${our_contract._address}`);

or in this other way.

console.log(`Our Contract address in other way:  ${our_contract.options.address}`);

Now our contract abi.

console.log("Our contract abi: " + JSON.stringify(our_contract.options.jsonInterface));

This is turning more interesting, let’s see what’s going on with our contract

Now let’s get our contract total supply.

var totalSupply = await our_contract.methods.totalSupply().call();

Now let’s get our contract public variable name.

var name = await our_contract.methods.name().call();

Now let’s get our contract public variable symbol.

var symbol = await our_contract.methods.symbol().call();