eth-lib

What is eth-lib?

eth-lib is a JavaScript library for Ethereum that provides a set of utilities for working with Ethereum data structures and cryptographic functions. It is designed to be lightweight and modular, making it easy to use in various Ethereum-related projects.

What are eth-lib's main functionalities?

Hashing

This feature allows you to perform keccak256 hashing, which is commonly used in Ethereum for creating unique identifiers and securing data.

const ethLib = require('eth-lib');
const hash = ethLib.Hash.keccak256('hello world');
console.log(hash);

RLP Encoding/Decoding

This feature provides functions for encoding and decoding data using Recursive Length Prefix (RLP), a serialization method used in Ethereum.

const ethLib = require('eth-lib');
const encoded = ethLib.RLP.encode(['hello', 'world']);
const decoded = ethLib.RLP.decode(encoded);
console.log(encoded, decoded);

Signing

This feature allows you to sign messages with a private key, which is essential for creating transactions and verifying ownership in Ethereum.

const ethLib = require('eth-lib');
const privateKey = '0x...';
const message = 'hello world';
const signature = ethLib.Account.sign(message, privateKey);
console.log(signature);

Address Generation

This feature enables you to generate Ethereum addresses from private keys, which is fundamental for creating new accounts and managing identities.

const ethLib = require('eth-lib');
const privateKey = ethLib.Account.create().privateKey;
const address = ethLib.Account.fromPrivate(privateKey).address;
console.log(address);

Other packages similar to eth-lib

web3

web3 is a comprehensive library for interacting with the Ethereum blockchain. It provides a wide range of functionalities including contract interaction, account management, and utilities for working with Ethereum data structures. Compared to eth-lib, web3 is more feature-rich but also heavier and more complex.

ethers

ethers is a library for interacting with the Ethereum blockchain and its ecosystem. It is designed to be a complete and compact library for Ethereum, offering utilities for signing, hashing, and interacting with smart contracts. ethers is similar to eth-lib in terms of functionality but is more modern and actively maintained.

ethereumjs-util

ethereumjs-util is a collection of utility functions for Ethereum. It provides low-level functions for hashing, signing, and encoding/decoding data. Compared to eth-lib, ethereumjs-util is more focused on providing low-level utilities and is often used as a building block for other libraries.

README

EthFP

Lightweight Ethereum libraries with strong emphasis in simplicity, efficiency, type consistency, purity and absolute modularity. It is heavily inspired by, and in many parts ported from EthJS, with some tweaks to:

1. Eliminate some inefficiencies (ex: RLP dependency, which is currently bigger/slower than it could be);

2. Make the implementation a little bit closer to a pure functional programming style.

This will, hopefully, make function interfaces a little bit cleaner, unecessary format conversions less frequent, and minified .js builds faster and smaller. Moreover, it is a step in the direction of formalizing Ethereum on Coq, Idris, Agda or similar, which, in a future, could be used to analyze DApps and smart-contracts in type-theory for ultimate safety.