@ethereumjs/util

What is @ethereumjs/util?

@ethereumjs/util is a utility library for Ethereum-related operations. It provides a wide range of utility functions for handling Ethereum addresses, private keys, public keys, signatures, and other cryptographic operations. This package is essential for developers working on Ethereum-based applications, as it simplifies many common tasks.

What are @ethereumjs/util's main functionalities?

Address Utilities

This feature allows you to convert an Ethereum address to its checksummed version, which includes mixed-case letters to help prevent errors.

const { toChecksumAddress } = require('@ethereumjs/util');
const address = '0x32Be343B94f860124dC4fEe278FDCBD38C102D88';
const checksumAddress = toChecksumAddress(address);
console.log(checksumAddress); // '0x32Be343B94f860124dC4fEe278FDCBD38C102D88'

Private Key Utilities

This feature allows you to derive an Ethereum address from a given private key.

const { privateToAddress } = require('@ethereumjs/util');
const privateKey = Buffer.from('c87509a1c067bbde78beb793e6fa1b2b4a5c4c9c3c8e3b3a3b3a3b3a3b3a3b3a', 'hex');
const address = privateToAddress(privateKey);
console.log(address.toString('hex')); // '0x32Be343B94f860124dC4fEe278FDCBD38C102D88'

Signature Utilities

This feature allows you to sign a message hash with a private key and convert the signature to RPC format.

const { ecsign, toRpcSig } = require('@ethereumjs/util');
const msgHash = Buffer.from('5c6ffbdd40d9556b73a21e63c3e0e904e4e1a8a0', 'hex');
const privateKey = Buffer.from('c87509a1c067bbde78beb793e6fa1b2b4a5c4c9c3c8e3b3a3b3a3b3a3b3a3b3a', 'hex');
const sig = ecsign(msgHash, privateKey);
const rpcSig = toRpcSig(sig.v, sig.r, sig.s);
console.log(rpcSig); // '0x...' (signature in RPC format)

Other packages similar to @ethereumjs/util

ethereumjs-wallet

ethereumjs-wallet is a library for creating and managing Ethereum wallets. It provides functionalities for generating private keys, addresses, and signing transactions. Compared to @ethereumjs/util, it is more focused on wallet management rather than general utility functions.

web3-utils

web3-utils is a utility library that is part of the Web3.js suite. It provides a wide range of utility functions for Ethereum-related operations, including encoding/decoding, hashing, and address validation. It overlaps with @ethereumjs/util in many areas but is part of a larger framework for interacting with the Ethereum blockchain.

ethers

ethers is a complete Ethereum library that includes utilities for interacting with the Ethereum blockchain, managing wallets, and performing cryptographic operations. It offers similar functionalities to @ethereumjs/util but is more comprehensive, providing a full suite of tools for Ethereum development.

README

@ethereumjs/util

A collection of utility functions for Ethereum.

Installation

To obtain the latest version, simply require the project using npm:

npm install @ethereumjs/util

Usage

This package contains the following modules providing respective helper methods, classes and commonly re-used constants.

All helpers are re-exported from the root level and deep imports are not necessary. So an import can be done like this:

import { hexToBytes, isValidChecksumAddress } from '@ethereumjs/util'

Module: account

Class representing an Account and providing private/public key and address-related functionality (creation, validation, conversion).

// ./examples/account.ts

import { Account } from '@ethereumjs/util'

const account = Account.fromAccountData({
  nonce: '0x02',
  balance: '0x0384',
  storageRoot: '0x56e81f171bcc55a6ff8345e692c0f86e5b48e01b996cadc001622fb5e363b421',
  codeHash: '0xc5d2460186f7233c927e7db2dcc703c0e500b653ca82273b7bfad8045d85a470',
})
console.log(`Account with nonce=${account.nonce} and balance=${account.balance} created`)

For Verkle or other contexts it can be useful to create partial accounts not containing all the account parameters. This is supported starting with v9.1.0:

// ./examples/accountPartial.ts

import { Account } from '@ethereumjs/util'

const account = Account.fromPartialAccountData({
  nonce: '0x02',
  balance: '0x0384',
})
console.log(`Partial account with nonce=${account.nonce} and balance=${account.balance} created`)

Module: address

Class representing an Ethereum Address with instantiation helpers and validation methods.

// ./examples/address.ts

import { Address } from '@ethereumjs/util'

const address = Address.fromString('0x2f015c60e0be116b1f0cd534704db9c92118fb6a')
console.log(`Ethereum address ${address.toString()} created`)

Module: blobs

Module providing helpers for 4844 blobs and versioned hashes.

// ./examples/blobs.ts

import { bytesToHex, computeVersionedHash, getBlobs } from '@ethereumjs/util'

const blobs = getBlobs('test input')

console.log('Created the following blobs:')
console.log(blobs)

const commitment = new Uint8Array([1, 2, 3])
const blobCommitmentVersion = 0x01
const versionedHash = computeVersionedHash(commitment, blobCommitmentVersion)

console.log(`Versioned hash ${bytesToHex(versionedHash)} computed`)

Module: bytes

Byte-related helper and conversion functions.

// ./examples/bytes.ts

import { bytesToBigInt } from '@ethereumjs/util'

const bytesValue = new Uint8Array([97])
const bigIntValue = bytesToBigInt(bytesValue)

console.log(`Converted value: ${bigIntValue}`)

Module: constants

Exposed constants (e.g. KECCAK256_NULL_S for string representation of Keccak-256 hash of null)

// ./examples/constants.ts

import { BIGINT_2EXP96, KECCAK256_NULL_S } from '@ethereumjs/util'

console.log(`The keccak-256 hash of null: ${KECCAK256_NULL_S}`)
console.log(`BigInt constants (performance), e.g. BIGINT_2EXP96: ${BIGINT_2EXP96}`)

Module: db

DB interface for database abstraction (Blockchain, Trie), see e.g. @ethereumjs/trie recipes) for usage.

Module: genesis

Genesis related interfaces and helpers.

Module: internal

Internalized simple helper methods like isHexString. Note that methods from this module might get deprecated in the future.

Module: kzg

KZG interface (used for 4844 blob txs), see @ethereumjs/tx README for main usage instructions.

Module: mapDB

Simple map DB implementation using the DB interface (see above).

Module: requests

Module with various type and an abstract base class for EIP-7685 general purpose execution layer requests to the CL (Prague hardfork) as well as concrete implementations for the currently supported request types:

• EIP-6110: DepositRequest (Prague Harfork)
• EIP-7002: WithdrawawlRequest (Prague Hardfork)
• EIP-7251: ConsolidationRequest (Prague Hardfork)

These request types are mainly used within the @ethereumjs/block library where applied usage instructions are provided in the README.

Module: signature

Functionality for signing, signature validation, conversion, recovery.

// ./examples/signature.ts

import { bytesToHex, ecrecover, hexToBytes } from '@ethereumjs/util'

const chainId = BigInt(3) // Ropsten

const echash = hexToBytes('0x82ff40c0a986c6a5cfad4ddf4c3aa6996f1a7837f9c398e17e5de5cbd5a12b28')
const r = hexToBytes('0x99e71a99cb2270b8cac5254f9e99b6210c6c10224a1579cf389ef88b20a1abe9')
const s = hexToBytes('0x129ff05af364204442bdb53ab6f18a99ab48acc9326fa689f228040429e3ca66')
const v = BigInt(41)

const pubkey = ecrecover(echash, v, r, s, chainId)

console.log(`Recovered public key ${bytesToHex(pubkey)} from valid signature values`)

Module: types

Various TypeScript types. Direct usage is not recommended, type structure might change in the future.

Module: withdrawal

Class representing an EIP-4895 Withdrawal with different constructors as well as conversion and output helpers.

// ./examples/withdrawal.ts

import { Withdrawal } from '@ethereumjs/util'

const withdrawal = Withdrawal.fromWithdrawalData({
  index: 0n,
  validatorIndex: 65535n,
  address: '0x0000000000000000000000000000000000000000',
  amount: 0n,
})

console.log('Withdrawal object created:')
console.log(withdrawal.toJSON())

Browser

With the breaking release round in Summer 2023 we have added hybrid ESM/CJS builds for all our libraries (see section below) and have eliminated many of the caveats which had previously prevented a frictionless browser usage.

It is now easily possible to run a browser build of one of the EthereumJS libraries within a modern browser using the provided ESM build. For a setup example see ./examples/browser.html.

API

Documentation

Read the API docs.

Upgrade Helpers in bytes-Module

Depending on the extend of Buffer usage within your own libraries and other planning considerations, there are the two upgrade options to do the switch to Uint8Array yourself or keep Buffer and do transitions for input and output values.

We have updated the @ethereumjs/util bytes module with helpers for the most common conversions:

Buffer.alloc(97) // Allocate a Buffer with length 97
new Uint8Array(97) // Allocate a Uint8Array with length 97

Buffer.from('342770c0', 'hex') // Convert a hex string to a Buffer
hexToBytes('0x342770c0') // Convert a prefixed hex string to a Uint8Array, Util.hexToBytes()

`0x${myBuffer.toString('hex')}` // Convert a Buffer to a prefixed hex string
bytesToHex(myUint8Array) // Convert a Uint8Array to a prefixed hex string

intToBuffer(9) // Convert an integer to a Buffer, old (removed)
intToBytes(9) // Convert an integer to a Uint8Array, Util.intToBytes()
bytesToInt(myUint8Array) // Convert a Uint8Array to an integer, Util.bytesToInt()

bigIntToBytes(myBigInt) // Convert a BigInt to a Uint8Array, Util.bigIntToBytes()
bytesToBigInt(myUint8Array) // Convert a Uint8Array to a BigInt, Util.bytesToInt()

utf8ToBytes(myUtf8String) // Converts a UTF-8 string to a Uint8Array, Util.utf8ToBytes()
bytesToUtf8(myUint8Array) // Converts a Uint8Array to a UTF-8 string, Util.bytesToUtf8()

toBuffer(v: ToBufferInputTypes) // Converts various byte compatible types to Buffer, old (removed)
toBytes(v: ToBytesInputTypes) // Converts various byte compatible types to Uint8Array, Util.toBytes()

Helper methods can be imported like this:

import { hexToBytes } from '@ethereumjs/util'

Hybrid CJS/ESM Builds

With the breaking releases from Summer 2023 we have started to ship our libraries with both CommonJS (cjs folder) and ESM builds (esm folder), see package.json for the detailed setup.

If you use an ES6-style import in your code files from the ESM build will be used:

import { EthereumJSClass } from '@ethereumjs/[PACKAGE_NAME]'

If you use Node.js specific require, the CJS build will be used:

const { EthereumJSClass } = require('@ethereumjs/[PACKAGE_NAME]')

Using ESM will give you additional advantages over CJS beyond browser usage like static code analysis / Tree Shaking which CJS can not provide.

Buffer -> Uint8Array

With the breaking releases from Summer 2023 we have removed all Node.js specific Buffer usages from our libraries and replace these with Uint8Array representations, which are available both in Node.js and the browser (Buffer is a subclass of Uint8Array).

We have converted existing Buffer conversion methods to Uint8Array conversion methods in the @ethereumjs/util bytes module, see the respective README section for guidance.

BigInt Support

Starting with Util v8 the usage of BN.js for big numbers has been removed from the library and replaced with the usage of the native JS BigInt data type (introduced in ES2020).

Please note that number-related API signatures have changed along with this version update and the minimal build target has been updated to ES2020.

ethjs-util methods

The following methods are available by an internalized version of the ethjs-util package (MIT license), see internal.ts. The original package is not maintained any more and the original functionality will be replaced by own implementations over time (starting with the v7.1.3 release, October 2021).

• arrayContainsArray
• getBinarySize
• stripHexPrefix
• isHexString
• isHexString
• padToEven
• fromAscii
• fromUtf8
• toUtf8
• toAscii
• getKeys

They can be imported by name:

import { stripHexPrefix } from '@ethereumjs/util'

EthereumJS

See our organizational documentation for an introduction to EthereumJS as well as information on current standards and best practices. If you want to join for work or carry out improvements on the libraries, please review our contribution guidelines first.

License

MPL-2.0