AddressType - definition as 0x{string} -- is this better than string?

[appleseed-iii]

I'm curious on the thinking behind defining AddressType as 0x{string}? It feels overly restrictive for very little increase in type safety. I guess I can't really come up with a big negative except now I need to go change all my address: string types 😭

[tmm]

I'd like to think so. That way you don't accidentally pass in a non-address value. It also makes types more obvious if you use ABIType in functions for autocomplete, etc.

That said, you can configure ABIType to use whatever AddressType you want:

declare module 'abitype' {
  export interface Config {
    AddressType: string
  }
}

[appleseed-iii]

good thinking 💪

[zkSoju]

Is the best approach to just assert the type using as when you know it is an address value? Or have a wrapper function?

[tmm]

You could assert. Ideally the AddressType would be a native type in your code (e.g. response from APIs, frontend state management, etc.).

[vseehausen]

The idea of checking if an Address starts with a 0x is great in theory, but in practice, it makes too many problems:

1. I usually import a JSON with contract addresses into my frontend repo.
2. These json imports don't get checked.
3. I could cast all types in a JS/TS file, but this would mean to much manual work when I redeploy.
4. I end up doing this often:

liquidityPoolContract()
			.balanceOf(/** @type {import('abitype').Address} Address */ ($account.address))

Which then renders the whole type-checking meaningless.

Also, most errors with addresses are based on a wrong address-chain connection and can only be found at runtime.

So, this library works great, but this one opinionated configuration could imho be changed. <3

[tmm]

Thanks for the info! Have you tried configuring the AddressType?

• Discussion AddressType - definition as `0x{string}` -- is this better than `string`? #49 (comment)
• Docs https://abitype.dev/config.html

[vseehausen]

Hey, that worked for the last project, but now I am use JSDoc only, which I did not manage to configure. I honestly think the 0x is not doing a typecheck, but a content check. I think this should be changed.

Opened this one: #226