Tutorials
EVM (General)

EVM (general)

Overview

The Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) is the runtime environment for smart contracts, enabling compatibility with Ethereum-based dApps. Sei is an EVM compatible blockchain. Sei's parallelized EVM ensures high performance and efficiency.

Here are some key points about the EVM:

  1. Turing Completeness: The EVM is Turing complete, meaning it can execute any computable function. This allows developers to write complex smart contracts.
  2. Gas: Transactions and contract executions on the EVM compatible network consume gas. Gas is a measure of computational work, and users pay for it in usei on Sei networks . Gas ensures that malicious or inefficient code doesn’t overload the network.
  3. Bytecode Execution: Smart contracts are compiled into bytecode (low-level machine-readable instructions) and deployed to the EVM compatible network. The EVM executes this bytecode.

Smart contract languages

The two most popular languages for developing smart contracts on the EVM are Solidity and Vyper.

Solidity

  • Object-oriented, high-level language for implementing smart contracts.
  • Curly-bracket language that has been most profoundly influenced by C++.
  • Statically typed (the type of a variable is known at compile time).
  • Supports:
    • Inheritance (you can extend other contracts).
    • Libraries (you can create reusable code that you can call from different contracts – like static functions in a static class in other object oriented programming languages).
    • Complex user-defined types.

Example solidity contract

// SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-3.0
pragma solidity >= 0.7.0;
 
contract Coin {
    // The keyword "public" makes variables
    // accessible from other contracts
    address public minter;
    mapping (address => uint) public balances;
 
    // Events allow clients to react to specific
    // contract changes you declare
    event Sent(address from, address to, uint amount);
 
    // Constructor code is only run when the contract
    // is created
    constructor() {
        minter = msg.sender;
    }
 
    // Sends an amount of newly created coins to an address
    // Can only be called by the contract creator
    function mint(address receiver, uint amount) public {
        require(msg.sender == minter);
        require(amount < 1e60);
        balances[receiver] += amount;
    }
 
    // Sends an amount of existing coins
    // from any caller to an address
    function send(address receiver, uint amount) public {
        require(amount <= balances[msg.sender], "Insufficient balance.");
        balances[msg.sender] -= amount;
        balances[receiver] += amount;
        emit Sent(msg.sender, receiver, amount);
    }
}

Vyper

  • Pythonic programming language
  • Strong typing
  • Small and understandable compiler code
  • Efficient bytecode generation
  • Deliberately has less features than Solidity with the aim of making contracts more secure and easier to audit. Vyper does not support:
    • Modifiers
    • Inheritance
    • Inline assembly
    • Function overloading
    • Operator overloading
    • Recursive calling
    • Infinite-length loops
    • Binary fixed points

Example Vyper contract

# Open Auction
 
# Auction params
# Beneficiary receives money from the highest bidder
beneficiary: public(address)
auctionStart: public(uint256)
auctionEnd: public(uint256)
 
# Current state of auction
highestBidder: public(address)
highestBid: public(uint256)
 
# Set to true at the end, disallows any change
ended: public(bool)
 
# Keep track of refunded bids so we can follow the withdraw pattern
pendingReturns: public(HashMap[address, uint256])
 
# Create a simple auction with `_bidding_time`
# seconds bidding time on behalf of the
# beneficiary address `_beneficiary`.
@external
def __init__(_beneficiary: address, _bidding_time: uint256):
    self.beneficiary = _beneficiary
    self.auctionStart = block.timestamp
    self.auctionEnd = self.auctionStart + _bidding_time
 
# Bid on the auction with the value sent
# together with this transaction.
# The value will only be refunded if the
# auction is not won.
@external
@payable
def bid():
    # Check if bidding period is over.
    assert block.timestamp < self.auctionEnd
    # Check if bid is high enough
    assert msg.value > self.highestBid
    # Track the refund for the previous high bidder
    self.pendingReturns[self.highestBidder] += self.highestBid
    # Track new high bid
    self.highestBidder = msg.sender
    self.highestBid = msg.value
 
# Withdraw a previously refunded bid. The withdraw pattern is
# used here to avoid a security issue. If refunds were directly
# sent as part of bid(), a malicious bidding contract could block
# those refunds and thus block new higher bids from coming in.
@external
def withdraw():
    pending_amount: uint256 = self.pendingReturns[msg.sender]
    self.pendingReturns[msg.sender] = 0
    send(msg.sender, pending_amount)
 
# End the auction and send the highest bid
# to the beneficiary.
@external
def endAuction():
    # It is a good guideline to structure functions that interact
    # with other contracts (i.e. they call functions or send ether)
    # into three phases:
    # 1. checking conditions
    # 2. performing actions (potentially changing conditions)
    # 3. interacting with other contracts
    # If these phases are mixed up, the other contract could call
    # back into the current contract and modify the state or cause
    # effects (ether payout) to be performed multiple times.
    # If functions called internally include interaction with external
    # contracts, they also have to be considered interaction with
    # external contracts.
 
    # 1. Conditions
    # Check if auction endtime has been reached
    assert block.timestamp >= self.auctionEnd
    # Check if this function has already been called
    assert not self.ended
 
    # 2. Effects
    self.ended = True
 
    # 3. Interaction
    send(self.beneficiary, self.highestBid)

Deploying EVM contract on Sei

Since Sei is an EVM compatible chain, existing EVM tooling like hardhat (opens in a new tab), foundry forge (opens in a new tab) or other could be re-used.

In this example we will be using foundry tooling (opens in a new tab).

Install the foundry tooling (opens in a new tab) by following this Installation guide (opens in a new tab).

Create a new project following the Creating New Project Guide (opens in a new tab).

Also make sure you have a wallet on Sei network.

Once project is created, tweak the contract code to the following, by adding a getCounter function:

// SPDX-License-Identifier: UNLICENSED
pragma solidity ^0.8.13;
 
contract Counter {
    uint256 public number;
 
    function setNumber(uint256 newNumber) public {
        number = newNumber;
    }
 
    function increment() public {
        number++;
    }
 
    function getCount() public view returns (uint256) {
        return number;
    }
}
 

And the test code to the following:

// SPDX-License-Identifier: UNLICENSED
pragma solidity ^0.8.13;
 
import {Test, console} from "forge-std/Test.sol";
import {Counter} from "../src/Counter.sol";
 
contract CounterTest is Test {
    Counter public counter;
 
    function setUp() public {
        counter = new Counter();
        counter.setNumber(0);
    }
 
    function test_Increment() public {
        counter.increment();
        assertEq(counter.number(), 1);
    }
 
    function testFuzz_SetNumber(uint256 x) public {
        counter.setNumber(x);
        assertEq(counter.number(), x);
    }
 
    function test_GetCount() public {
        uint256 initialCount = counter.getCount();
        counter.increment();
        assertEq(counter.getCount(), initialCount + 1);
    }
}

Run the tests with the following command:

$ forge test

If tests pass, deploy the contract to the Sei chain with the following command:

$ forge create --rpc-url $SEI_NODE_URI --mnemonic $MNEMONIC src/Counter.sol:Counter

Where $SEI_NODE_URI is the URI of the Sei node and $MNEMONIC is the mnemonic of the account that will deploy the contract. If you run local Sei node, the address will be http://localhost:8545 , otherwise you could grab a evm_rpc url from the registry (opens in a new tab). If deployment is successful, you will get the EVM contract address in the output.

[⠒] Compiling...
No files changed, compilation skipped
Deployer: $0X_DEPLOYER_ADDRESS
Deployed to: $0X_CONTRACT_ADDRESS
Transaction hash: $0X_TX_HASH

Let's use the cast command to query the contract:

$ cast call $0X_CONTRACT_ADDRESS "getCount()(uint256)" --rpc-url $SEI_NODE_URI

The command should return 0 as the initial value of the counter.

Now we can use the cast command to call the increment function:

$ cast send $0X_CONTRACT_ADDRESS "increment()" --mnemonic $MNEMONIC --rpc-url $SEI_NODE_URI

If command is successful, you will get the transaction hash and other info back.

Now let's call the getCount function again and this case it should return 1.

Calling contract from JS client

To call contract from frontend, you could use ethers like:

import {ethers} from "ethers";
 
const privateKey = <Your Private Key>;
const evmRpcEndpoint = <Your Evm Rpc Endpoint>
const provider = new ethers.JsonRpcProvider(evmRpcEndpoint);
const signer = new ethers.Wallet(privateKey, provider);
 
if (!signer) {
    console.log('No signer found');
    return;
}
const abi = [
 {
      "type": "function",
      "name": "setNumber",
      "inputs": [
        {
          "name": "newNumber",
          "type": "uint256",
          "internalType": "uint256"
        }
      ],
      "outputs": [],
      "stateMutability": "nonpayable"
    },
    {
        "type": "function",
        "name": "getCount",
        "inputs": [],
        "outputs": [
            {
                "name": "",
                "type": "int256",
                "internalType": "int256"
            }
        ],
        "stateMutability": "view"
    },
    {
        "type": "function",
        "name": "increment",
        "inputs": [],
        "outputs": [],
        "stateMutability": "nonpayable"
    }
];
 
// Define the address of the deployed contract
const contractAddress = 0X_CONTRACT_ADDRESS;
 
// Create a new instance of the ethers.js Contract object
const contract = new ethers.Contract(contractAddress, abi, signer);
 
// Call the contract's functions
async function getCount() {
    const count = await contract.getCount();
    console.log(count.toString());
}
 
async function increment() {
    const txResponse = await contract.increment();
    const mintedTx = await txResponse.wait();
    console.log(mintedTx);
}
 
await increment();
await getCount();