Types¶

Viper is a statically typed language, which means that the type of each variable (state and local) needs to be specified or at least known at compile-time. Viper provides several elementary types which can be combined to form complex types.

In addition, types can interact with each other in expressions containing operators.

Value Types¶

The following types are also called value types because variables of these types will always be passed by value, i.e. they are always copied when they are used as function arguments or in assignments.

Booleans¶

bool: The possible values are constants true and false.

Operators:

not (logical negation)
and (logical conjunction, “&&”)
or (logical disjunction, “||”)
== (equality)
not ... == ... ``, ``!= (inequality)

The operators or and and apply the common short-circuiting rules. This means that in the expression f(x) or g(y), if f(x) evaluates to true, g(y) will not be evaluated even if it may have side-effects.

Integers¶

num: equivalent to``int128``, a signed integer strictly between -2**127 and 2**127-1.

Operators:

Comparisons: <=, <, ==, !=, >=, > (evaluate to bool)
Arithmetic operators: +, -, unary -, unary +, *, /, % (remainder)

Decimals¶

decimal: a decimal fixed point value with the integer component represented as a num and the fractional component supporting up to ten decimal places.

Time¶

timestamp: a timestamp value with a base unit of one second, represented as a num.

timedelta: a number of seconds (note: two timedeltas can be added together, as can a timedelta and a timestamp, but not two timestamps), represented as a num.

Value¶

wei_value: an amount of ether with a base unit of one wei, represented as a num.

currency_value: represents an amount of currency and should be used to represent assets where ether is traded for value, represented as a num.

Address¶

address: Holds an Ethereum address (20 byte value).

Members of Addresses¶

balance and send

It is possible to query the balance of an address using the property balance and to send Ether (in units of wei) to an address using the send function:

x: address

def foo(x: address):
    if (x.balance < 10 and self.balance >= 10):
        x.send(10)

Fixed-size byte arrays¶

bytes32: 32 bytes

# Declaration
hash: bytes32

# Assignment
self.hash = _hash

bytes <= maxlen: a byte array with the given maximum length

# Declaration
name: bytes <= 5

# Assignment
self.name = _name

type[length]: finite list

# Declaration
numbers: num[3]

# Assignment
self.numbers[0] = _num1

Structs¶

Structs are custom defined types that can group several variables. They can be accessed via struct.argname.

# Information about voters
voters: public({
    # weight is accumulated by delegation
    weight: num,
    # if true, that person already voted
    voted: bool,
    # person delegated to
    delegate: address,
    # index of the voted proposal
    vote: num
})

Mappings¶

Mapping types are declared as _ValueType[_KeyType]. Here _KeyType can be almost any type except for mappings, a contract, or a struct. _ValueType can actually be any type, including mappings.

Mappings can be seen as hash tables which are virtually initialized such that every possible key exists and is mapped to a value whose byte-representation is all zeros: a type’s default value. The similarity ends here, though: The key data is not actually stored in a mapping, only its keccak256 hash used to look up the value.

Because of this, mappings do not have a length or a concept of a key or value being “set”.

Mappings are only allowed as state variables.

It is possible to mark mappings public and have Viper create a getter. The _KeyType will become a required parameter for the getter and it will return _ValueType.

Note

Mappings can only be accessed, not iterated over.