ethers

What is ethers?

The ethers npm package is a library that provides a set of tools to interact with the Ethereum blockchain. It allows users to connect to the Ethereum network, manage wallets and keys, interact with smart contracts, and perform various other blockchain-related operations.

What are ethers's main functionalities?

Connecting to Ethereum Network

This code sample demonstrates how to connect to the Ethereum network using ethers with an Infura provider.

const { ethers } = require('ethers');
const provider = new ethers.providers.JsonRpcProvider('https://mainnet.infura.io/v3/YOUR_INFURA_API_KEY');

Wallet Management

This code sample shows how to create a new wallet from a private key and connect it to an Ethereum provider.

const { ethers } = require('ethers');
const wallet = new ethers.Wallet('YOUR_PRIVATE_KEY');
const connectedWallet = wallet.connect(provider);

Interacting with Smart Contracts

This code sample illustrates how to interact with a smart contract by creating a contract instance and calling one of its functions.

const { ethers } = require('ethers');
const abi = [...] // Contract ABI
const contractAddress = '0x...'; // Contract address
const contract = new ethers.Contract(contractAddress, abi, provider);
const value = await contract.someFunction();

Sending Transactions

This code sample demonstrates how to send a transaction to the Ethereum network using a wallet instance.

const { ethers } = require('ethers');
const tx = {
  to: '0x...',
  value: ethers.utils.parseEther('1.0'),
  gasLimit: 21000,
  gasPrice: ethers.utils.parseUnits('10', 'gwei')
};
const sendPromise = wallet.sendTransaction(tx);

Querying Blockchain Data

This code sample shows how to query blockchain data, such as retrieving the latest block number and details of a specific block.

const { ethers } = require('ethers');
const blockNumber = await provider.getBlockNumber();
const block = await provider.getBlock(blockNumber);

Other packages similar to ethers

truffle-contract

Truffle Contract is part of the Truffle Suite and is designed to provide a more comfortable abstraction for interacting with Ethereum smart contracts. It is often used in combination with other Truffle tools for development, testing, and deployment. While it offers similar contract interaction capabilities, it is more tightly integrated with the Truffle development environment compared to ethers.

drizzle

Drizzle is a collection of front-end libraries that make writing dApp front-ends easier and more predictable. It is part of the Truffle Suite and is designed to work with a Redux store. Drizzle provides reactive contract data fetching and transaction processing, which can be more convenient for dApp development. However, it is more opinionated and specific to front-end development compared to ethers, which is more general-purpose.

README

The Ethers Project

A complete Ethereum wallet implementation and utilities in JavaScript (and TypeScript).

Features:

• Keep your private keys in your client, safe and sound
• Import and export JSON wallets (Geth, Parity and crowdsale)
• Import and export BIP 39 mnemonic phrases (12 word backup phrases) and HD Wallets (English as well as Czech, French, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Simplified Chinese, Spanish, Traditional Chinese)
• Meta-classes create JavaScript objects from any contract ABI, including ABIv2 and Human-Readable ABI
• Connect to Ethereum nodes over JSON-RPC, INFURA, Etherscan, Alchemy or MetaMask
• ENS names are first-class citizens; they can be used anywhere an Ethereum addresses can be used
• Tiny (~104kb compressed; 322kb uncompressed)
• Modular packages; include only what you need
• Complete functionality for all your Ethereum desires
• Extensive documentation
• Large collection of test cases which are maintained and added to
• Fully TypeScript ready, with definition files and full TypeScript source
• MIT License (including ALL dependencies); completely open source to do with as you please

Keep Updated

For the latest news and advisories, please follow the @ethersproject on Twitter (low-traffic, non-marketing, important information only) as well as watch this GitHub project.

For the latest changes, see the CHANGELOG.

Installing

node.js

/home/ricmoo/some_project> npm install --save ethers

browser (UMD)

<script src="https://cdn.ethers.io/lib/ethers-5.0.umd.min.js" type="text/javascript">
</script>

browser (ESM)

<script type="module">
    import { ethers } from "https://cdn.ethers.io/lib/ethers-5.0.umd.min.js";
</script>

Documentation

Browse the documentation online:

• Getting Started
• Full API Documentation
• Various Ethereum Articles

Or browse the entire documentation as a single page to make searching easier.

Ancillary Packages

These are a number of packages not included in the umbrella ethers npm package, and additional packages are always being added. Often these packages are for specific use-cases, so rather than adding them to the umbrella package, they are added as ancillary packages, which can be included by those who need them, while not bloating everyone else with packages they do not need.

We will keep a list of useful packages here.

• @ethersproject/experimental (documentation)
• @ethersproject/cli (documentation)
• @ethersproject/hardware-wallets (documentation)

License

MIT License (including all dependencies).