Book Image

Solidity Programming Essentials

Book Image

Solidity Programming Essentials

Overview of this book

Solidity is a contract-oriented language whose syntax is highly influenced by JavaScript, and is designed to compile code for the Ethereum Virtual Machine. Solidity Programming Essentials will be your guide to understanding Solidity programming to build smart contracts for Ethereum and blockchain from ground-up. We begin with a brief run-through of blockchain, Ethereum, and their most important concepts or components. You will learn how to install all the necessary tools to write, test, and debug Solidity contracts on Ethereum. Then, you will explore the layout of a Solidity source file and work with the different data types. The next set of recipes will help you work with operators, control structures, and data structures while building your smart contracts. We take you through function calls, return types, function modifers, and recipes in object-oriented programming with Solidity. Learn all you can on event logging and exception handling, as well as testing and debugging smart contracts. By the end of this book, you will be able to write, deploy, and test smart contracts in Ethereum. This book will bring forth the essence of writing contracts using Solidity and also help you develop Solidity skills in no time.
Table of Contents (17 chapters)
Title Page
Copyright and Credits
Packt Upsell
Contributors
Preface
Index

Ethereum networks


Ethereum is an open source platform for creating and deploying distributed applications.

Ethereum is backed up by a large number of computers (also known as nodes)—all interconnected and storing data in a distributed ledger. Distributed ledger here means that a copy of this ledger is available to each and every node on the network. It provides flexibility to its developers to deploy their solution to multiple types. Developers should choose an appropriate network based on their requirements and use cases. These different networks also help in deploying solutions and smart contracts on networks that do not actually cost any Ether or money. There are networks that are free of cost while there are ones that require its users to pay in terms of Ether or other currencies for its usage.

Main network

The main Ethereum network is a global public network that anybody can use. It can be accessed using an account and everybody is free to create an account and deploy their solutions and...