In this article, we’ll learn about function constructors, a Solidity language feature enabling us to execute a function during smart contract creation. It’s part of our long-standing tradition to make this (and other) articles a faithful companion or a supplement to the official Solidity documentation. We’ll base this article on the original Solidity programming language content. Conceptual Overview A constructor is a Solidity language feature that makes it possible to attach a specific behavior, i.e., a function, to the beginning of the smart contract lifecycle. It is executed only once ..read more

In this article, we’ll learn about function overloading , a useful and interesting feature in the Solidity programming language. It’s part of our long-standing tradition to make this (and other) articles a faithful companion or a supplement to the official Solidity documentation. We’ll base this article on the original Solidity programming language content. Overview Function overloading is a feature that enables us to define more than one function with the same name but with different combinations of function parameters in terms of their number and type. Roughly speaking, we’d usually go wi ..read more

In this article, we will focus on the second topic of the interesting pair, the fallback function, as a follow-up on the receive ether function discussed in the previous article. It’s part of our long-standing tradition to make this (and other) articles a faithful companion, or a supplement to the official Solidity documentation. Overview The purpose behind a fallback function, as the name suggests, is to serve as a function that executes when: A contract receives a call but cannot match any other function by the function signature; When no data is supplied with the contract call and the c ..read more

In this article, we will focus on an important topic, the receive Ether function in Solidity. This function allows us to receive the currency and is the first of the two possible approaches for receiving currency. The other approach is the fallback function, and we’ll briefly introduce it here to become aware of the wider picture. We’ll also cover the fallback function in the following article in more detail. It’s part of our long-standing tradition to make this (and other) articles a faithful companion, or a supplement to the official Solidity documentation. Overview When our contract rece ..read more

Solidity has many useful features that enable us, smart contract developers, to make safe, secure, and functional smart contracts. We have discussed other interesting Solidity features, and this time, we’ll focus on one very important feature of Solidity called function visibility. It determines who can call a function and who can access its variables. In this article, we will explore the different types of function visibility in Solidity and how the types are used. It’s part of our long-standing tradition to make this (and other) articles a faithful companion, or a supplement to the officia ..read more

In this article, we’ll get a closer look at four main mechanisms for error handling in Solidity: functions assert, require, revert, and another approach based on exceptions. These mechanisms will help us tremendously in achieving stable and secure smart contracts, so this is the right moment to introduce them and lay the ground for a more thorough analysis. It’s part of our long-standing tradition to make this (and other) articles a faithful companion, or a supplement to the official Solidity documentation. assert() We’d commonly use the assert(...) function to test if a certain expression ..read more

In this article, we’ll learn about checked and unchecked expressions and when to use each of them. It’s part of our long-standing tradition to make this (and other) articles a faithful companion or a supplement to the official Solidity documentation for this article’s topic. We should consider whether an expression should be checked or unchecked in the Solidity programming language. Checked expressions will throw an exception and halt the program if a certain condition is not met, while unchecked expressions do not have this behavior. We should be aware of this distinction because unchecked ..read more

As promised in the previous article, we’ll get more closely familiar with the concept of scoping next. We’ll explain what scoping is, why it exists, and how it helps us in programming. It’s part of our long-standing tradition to make this (and other) articles a faithful companion, or a supplement to the official Solidity documentation. Scopes Overview Scope refers to the context in which we can access a defined variable or a function. There are three main types of scope specific to Solidity: global, contract, and function scope. In the global scope, variables, and functions are defined at ..read more

In this article, we’ll learn more about variable declarations in Solidity and further explain some of their specific behavior. To keep the article more succinct, we’ll focus on the next subject, scoping, in the next article. It’s part of our long-standing tradition to make this (and other) articles a faithful companion or a supplement to the official Solidity documentation. Variable Declaration and Initialization Before we step into the topic of declarations, let’s make a brief note of the difference between declaration and initialization. I find making this distinction useful because I not ..read more

Ethereum’s Total Value Locked (TVL) is $28,000,000,000 USD and Ethereum’s market cap is $193,000,000,000 USD. Based on my estimations below, there are at most 269,000 monthly active Solidity developers. Therefore, the Ethereum TVL per Solidity developer is more than $104,000, and the Ethereum market cap per Solidity developer is more than $717,000. So for all practical purposes, you can assume that the total value locked per Solidity developer is at least $821,000.* *I used very conservative assumptions; the real numbers will be much higher (see below). Also, I’m aware that not all Ethereum de ..read more