- Proposal: FIP-0004
- Author: Daniel Hails
- Review Manager: Susan Eisenbach
- Status: Awaiting review
We introduce the concept of ‘traits’ to Flint based in part on Rust Traits. Traits describe the partial behaviour of Contract or Structures which conform to them. For Contracts, traits constitute a collection of functions or function stubs in restriction blocks, and events. For Structures, traits only constitute a collection of functions or function stubs.
Contract or Structures can conform to multiple traits. The Flint compiler enforces the implementation of function stubs in the trait and allows usage of the functions declared in them.
Traits allow a level of abstraction and code reuse for Contracts and Structures. We also plan to have Standard Library Traits that can be inherited which provide common functionality to Contracts (Ownable, Burnable, MultiSig, Pausable, ERC20, ERC721, etc.) and Structures (Transferable, RawValued, Describable etc).
It will also form the basis for allowing end users to access compiler level guarantees and restrictions as in Assets and Numerics.
In the example below, we define ERC20, which declares a contract to follow the Ethereum token specifications. The ERC20 trait is then specified by the ToyToken contract allowing use of functions and events in ERC20.
contract trait ERC20 {
event Transfer {
let from: Address
let to: Address
let value: Int
}
event Approval {
let from: Address
let to: Address
let value: Int
}
self :: (any) {
public func totalSupply() -> Int
public func balanceOf(owner: Address) -> Int
public func allowance(owner: Address, spender: Address) -> Int
public mutating func transfer(to: Address, value: Int) -> Bool
public mutating func approve(spender: Address, value: Int) -> Bool
public mutating func transferFrom(from: Address, to: Address, value: Int) -> Bool
}
}
contract ToyToken: ERC20 {
var balances: [Address: Int] = [:]
var allowed: [Address: [Address: Int]] = [:]
var totalSupply: Int = 0
}
ToyToken :: (any) {
public init() {}
public func totalSupply() -> Int {
return totalSupply
}
public func balanceOf(owner: Address) -> Int {
return balances[owner]
}
public func allowance(owner: Address, spender: Address) -> Int {
return allowed[owner][spender]
}
}
ToyToken :: caller <- (any) {
public mutating func transfer(to: Address, value: Int) -> Bool {
balances[caller] -= value
balances[to] += value
emit Transfer(from: caller, to: to, value: value)
return true;
}
public mutating func approve(spender: Address, value: Int) -> Bool {
allowed[caller][spender] = value
emit Approval(from: caller, to: spender, value: value)
return true
}
public mutating func transferFrom(from: Address, to: Address, value: Int) -> Bool {
balances[from] -= value
balances[to] += value
allowed[from][caller] -= value
emit Transfer(from: from, to: to, value: value)
return true
}
}In the example below, we define Ownable, which declares a contract as something that can be owned and transferred. The Ownable trait is then specified by the ToyWallet contract allowing the use of methods in Ownable. This demonstrates how we can expose contract properties:
contract trait Ownable {
event OwnershipRenounced {
let previousOwner: Address
}
event OwnershipTransfered {
let previousOwner: Address
let newOwner: Address
}
self :: (any) {
public getOwner() -> Address
}
self :: (getOwner) {
func setOwner(newOwner: Address)
public func renounceOwnership() {
emit OwnershipRenounced(getOwner())
setOwner(0x000...)
}
public func transferOwnership(newOwner: Address) {
assert(newOwner != 0x000...)
emit OwnershipTransfered(getOwner(), newOwner)
setOwner(newOwner)
}
}
}
contract ToyWallet: Ownable {
visible var owner: Address // visible automatically creates getOwner
}
// Skipping initialiser as not relevant for this example
ToyWallet :: (getOwner) {
func setOwner(newOwner: Address){
self.owner = newOwner
}
}In the example below, we define Pausable, which declares a contract as something that can be paused. The Pausable trait is then specified by the ToyDAO contract allowing the use of methods in Pausable. This demonstrates how we can have traits with type states:
contract trait Pausable @(Inactive, Active) {
event Paused {}
self @(any) :: (any) {
public canCallerPause() -> Bool
}
self @(Active) :: (canCallerPause) {
public func pause(newOwner: Address) {
become InActive
}
}
self @(InActive) :: (canCallerPause) {
public func unpause() {
become Active
}
}
}
// Contracts need to conform to Pausable and include those states in its state declaration
contract ToyDAO: Pausable @(Inactive, Active) {
var owner: Address
}
ToyDAO @(any) :: caller <- (any) {
public canCallerPause() -> Bool {
return caller == owner
}
}
ToyDAO @(Active) :: (any) {
// Normal Functions
}We can also define structure traits using a less detailed syntax. Here we define an Animal structure trait. The Person structure then conforms to the Animal trait allowing the use of functions within that.
struct trait Animal {
// Must have an empty and named initialiser
public init()
public init(name: String)
// These are signatures that conforming structures must implement
// access properties of the structure
func isNamed() -> Bool
public func name() -> String
public func noise() -> String
// This is a pre-implemented function using the functions already in the trait.
public func speak() -> String {
if isNamed() {
return name()
}
else {
return noise()
}
}
}
struct Person: Animal {
let name: String
public init() {
self.name = "John Doe"
}
public init(name: String) {
self.name = name
}
// People always have a name, it's just not always known
func isNamed() -> Bool {
return true
}
// These access the properties of the struct
public func name() -> String {
return self.name
}
public func noise() -> String {
return "Huh?"
}
// Person can also have functions in addition to Animal
public func greet() -> String {
return "Hi"
}
}Traits are separated into two types - Structure Traits and Contract Traits - with different members being valid depending on the type. We also considered just having one type of trait but that resulted in non-sensical syntax such as structures with restriction blocks or contracts without them.
The same functionality that traits provide could have been provided by allowing inheritance of Contracts and Structures, in addition inheritance would also allow multiple levels of inheritance, while traits only allow one.
Functions declared in traits could have been public by default, removing the need for the public modifier for each function. This would however be inconsistent with Flint's private by default function policy.
We could have limited traits to only enforce functions to be declared and not define any pre-existing functionality. This would have made them very similar to Solidity Interfaces. However for a little additional complexity we don't need to have two separate concepts for interfacing and functions.
contract Name @(State1, State2) {
conforms Trait1, Trait2
}
#### Addition sign for multiple traits
contract Name: Trait1 + Trait2 + Trait3 {}
Accessors have a number of disadvantages. Of course there is the obvious one: they are tedious to define and to use. Writing node.location().x and node.set_location(p) is simply less nice than node.location.x and node.location = p. We could adopt a syntactic sugar by which the latter can be automatically translated to the former.
We would extend traits with an optional "field block" which would be a list of variable declarations. These could then be used within the trait according to their
trait Trait {
let field1: Type1
var field2: Type2
}
Conforming structures and contracts would have to then map field names to expressions.
contract Type: Trait {
field1 -> self.x
field2 -> self.y.z
}
These expressions must be of the form self(.F)* where F is some qualified field in the Contract / Structure. The properties will be checked to be compatible (same type, constant/variable match). You can't access the expression via the field name, only the trait will use this mapping.
State declaration for contracts could be moved inside of the contract declaration as opposed to at the head.
contract Type {
@ (State1, State2, State3)
}
This would reduce the worry about the initial declaration becoming too messy. Equally we can expand the Grammar and parser to support adding line breaks to the declaration.
contract Type: Trait1, Trait2, Trait3
@(State1, State2) {
// As normal from here on
}