What is Solidity ?

Solidity is one of the most widely used blockchain programming languages, providing most of the programs and tokens in the Ethereum ecosystem. Solidity is mainly used in Ethereum smart contracts and has many applications in this world. In this article from Coinmarketsig, we will introduce this popular language more.

What is Solidity Programming Language?

Solidity is an object-oriented programming language developed specifically by the Ethereum Network team to build and design smart contracts on blockchain platforms. Solidity is used to create smart contracts that implement business logic and create a chain of transaction records in the blockchain system. Acts as a tool to create machine-level code and compile it in the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM). It has many similarities with C ++ language ​​and is very easy to learn and understand. For example, “main” in C is equivalent to “contract” in solidity. Like other programming languages, the solidity language has variables, functions, classes, arithmetic operations, string manipulation, and many other concepts.

Evolution of Solidity Programming Language

Solidity is a relatively new language that is growing rapidly.

• Solidity is currently the main language in Ethereum and other private blockchains running on competing platforms; Like Monax and the Burroughs Hyperlger blockchain, it uses Tendermint for consensus.
• Swift has created a proof of concept that runs on Burroughs and uses solidity.

The Ethereum community of developers has defined standards that oversee the use of smart solidity contracts to build decentralized applications on Ethereum. Some of them, commonly referred to as “token standards”, are very familiar, while others are less well known. Here are some examples:

• ERC-20: fungible standard token
• ERC-721: Non-fungible token standard
• ERC-809: refers to the concept of “competing” goods; Items that one person uses to prevent another person from consuming them. For example, driving a car is a rival because two people can not drive the same car at the same time, but staring at the sunset is not the case. This token standard defines a lease standard for competing NFTs and allows them to lease it to other users.
• ERC-864: Allows joint ownership of NFTs.
• ERC-874: Unmatched weight tokens that allow a DAO to give more voting power to certain participants.

What is an Ethereum Virtual Machine?

Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) provides a runtime environment for smart Ethereum contracts.

• Primarily ensures the security and execution of untrusted programs through the use of the international network of public nodes.

Ethereum Virtual Machine specializes in Denial-of-Service and certifies that applications do not have access to each other’s status and also communicates without any possible interference between the parties.

What is Solidity ?

What are smart contracts?

The term smart contract was first coined in 1994 and refers to the registration of contracts in the form of computer code. The contract is automatically activated when the predetermined conditions are met.

Smart contracts create self-executing transactions without the need for intermediaries such as banks or other institutions. Twenty-five years ago, this idea was too advanced to be implemented because there was no technology to support this type of code.

Thanks to the development of blockchain technology, it is now possible to execute smart contracts on Ethereum and other blockchains. Ethereum is more of a blockchain-based development platform than a digital currency, allowing other blockchain-based applications to be built on smart contracts.

What do smart contracts include?

• The two parties (individuals or organizations) agree using a computer code.
• With the help of solidity programming language, the contract is executed on the Ethereum blockchain, which means that all the details of the contract are stored in a general ledger.
• Neither party can change the terms of the contract alone.
• All actions resulting from a smart contract are automated and performed without intermediaries.
• All transactions are logged on the blockchain and are irreversible.
• Transactions will not be performed if the predetermined conditions are not met.

Smart contracts are made possible thanks to the ability of blockchain technology to remember all the information and the parties do not face any problems of trust in each other. The people involved do not even need to trust each other because the contracts are only executed when the pre-agreed conditions are met.

Solidity language data types

Solidity supports all common types of data found in other object-oriented languages, including:

Boolean

Boolean data type gives “1” when the condition is true and “0” when the condition is false, depending on the condition of the condition.

Integer

You can make integer values ​​with or without a mark. Solidity also supports runtime exceptions and the keywords “uint8” and “uint256”.

String

Single or double quotes may indicate a string.

Modifier

Before executing code for a smart contract, a modifier often verifies that all terms are logical.

Array

Solidity programming syntax is similar to other object-oriented languages ​​and supports one-dimensional and multidimensional arrays.

In addition to the above, the solidity language allows the programmer to plot data structures with enumerations, operators, and hash values ​​to return values ​​stored in specific storage locations. The tools that solidity developers can use to build smart solidity-based contracts are:

Solgraph

Used to generate a DOT diagram that virtualizes the control flow function of a solidity function and shows security vulnerabilities.

Solidity REPL

Used to write command line codes on the Solidity console.

EVM Lab

A complete toolkit capable of interacting with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM). This package includes EPI Etherchin, Trace Display, Virtual Machine.

Evmdis

stands for Ethereum Virtual Machine Disassembler, which can statically analyze bytecodes to provide a higher level of abstraction than raw Ethereum Virtual Machine operations.

How is solidity used in the Ethereum?

How is solidity used in the Ethereum?

Ethereum’s ability to process instructions encoded in solidity is what sets it apart from other blockchains such as Bitcoin. Bitcoin can only process instructions related to bitcoin transactions, while Solidity allows the Ethereum virtual machine to translate infinite instructions.

When a developer writes a smart contract in solidity, it executes it through a compiler and divides it into a set of instructions that are displayed in bytecode. Ethereum Virtual Machine can read bytes and execute them appropriately.

The production of bytecodes leads to the emergence of an element of economic equilibrium in the process of developing smart contracts. Generating bytecodes requires Ethereum Gas, which must be paid for by the user.

Ethereum is a complete Turing machine. Basically, anyone can plan a smart solidity contract to do anything on the platform. But the developer’s obligation to buy enough gas limits this capability.

There are other languages, such as Serpent, Viper, and Myutan, that compilers can process bytecode. However, they all have the same functionality, which is to enable human-readable code to be compiled into bytecodes to be executed by the Ethereum virtual machine.

What is the difference between JavaScript, Solidity, Ethereum and Chaincode?

This is a question that has been raised recently and the question is somewhere! From the point of view of an experienced person, the above seems like a combination of different technologies that have been randomly combined. Beginners can hardly understand the difference between these titles at first.

Yet let’s answer the above question:

1. JavaScript is a language that can be interpreted in a timely manner. The language is more popular in front-end applications and runs in the browser, but is also used for applications such as NodeJS and Adobe Acrobat.
2. Solidity is a high-level language. This language is based somewhat on ECMAScript, which is why it is said to be similar to JavaScript. But this is where the similarity ends. Solidity is compiled (not interpreted) and usually runs on blockchains that understand the Ethereum virtual machine. The solidity code is compiled and deployed as a smart contract and can be communicated with.
3. Ethereum is commonly known as blockchain under the pretext of the Ethereum protocol. Ethereum blockchain is a network of nodes that generate and exchange blocks based on a specific protocol, the so-called Ethereum protocol. All network nodes must understand this protocol.
4. Chaincode is similar to smart contracts written with solidity. However, Chaincode is used in HyperLeger while the term smart contracts is used in Ethereum.

What is the use of solidity?

The following are the most important applications of solidity programming language.

1- voting

Voting is currently plagued by a number of issues, including data manipulation, fraudulent voters, changes in voting machines, and the occupation of polling stations. Smart solidity contracts can be established to facilitate transparency and simplification of the voting process.

2- Indoor Auctions

In the current open auctions, people can see each other’s bids, and this can lead to controversy and fraud. Using smart solidity contracts, he designed indoor auctions in which users could not see each other’s bids until the end of the auction.

3- Collective financing

Co-financing through smart contracts can solve issues such as third-party commissions and data management. Smart solidity contracts do not require centralized systems to build trust for crowdfunding, thus reducing additional costs.

Benefits of Solidity Programming

In addition to its core functionality, Solidity programming has a number of other features that make it superior to other Ethereum-based languages. In basic data types, solidity programming also supports complex data types and member variables.

Solidity provides a application binary interface (ABI) to secure data types. If the compiler notices a data type mismatch in each variable, the binary interface will generate an error.

Solidity refers to the “natural language specification” used by machines to convert user-centric specifications into intelligible language.

Disadvantages of solidity

Immutability is a great advantage, however in some cases it may be a disadvantage. For instance, once a contract is closed, it cannot be upgraded and new features added.

Since Ethereum runs on blockchain technology, it cannot collect and update information itself quickly in the system unless it does so through transaction operations. This shortcoming can be a major problem for factors such as volatility data such as forex prices.

The biggest weakness that can be seen in solidity is its immaturity (compared to older languages ​​such as C or Java). The disadvantage of this emergence is the annoying lack of libraries and references for developers and the difficulty of learning solidity for novices.

In Conclusion

Solidity continues to serve as the programming language for the largest ecosystem in the blockchain, Ethereum. The Solidity language, despite its limitations, has an active developer database that constantly updates its code and maintains smart contract standards. For this reason, one can expect solidity to remain one of the smart contract programming languages ​​right now.