[hardhat-ethers] Printing the provider always seems to indicate that it's pointing to localhost

[alcuadrado]

If you console.log ethers.provider, it prints a localhost url. This is confusing and many times incorrect. We should try to improve this by setting the url to something else. Maybe a message explaining that the value is bogus.

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Search terms: localhost:8545, connection, url, ethers.

[fvictorio]

Copying my comment from #1798 in case someone lands here.

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You can use hre.network.name to know which network is being used.

You can also use hre.network.config.url to get the URL, but that will be undefined when connecting to the hardhat network.

[aspiers]

@fvictorio commented on August 20, 2021 6:55 PM:

Copying my comment from #1798 in case someone lands here.

Also noting #2309 for reference.

You can use hre.network.name to know which network is being used.

You can also use hre.network.config.url to get the URL, but that will be undefined when connecting to the hardhat network.

Yes, surely there should be a single way to get the URL regardless of whether it's Hardhat network or something else.

Also, referencing hre.network.config.url in a Hardhat task where hre is declared as the HardhatRuntimeEnvironment type results in my editor (and probably any modern editor, since they all tend to use the same LSP servers these days) complaining that url doesn't exist:

I suspect HttpNetworkConfig is the actual type which the compiler would need to consider hre.network.config as being, but this should work out of the box and doesn't for some reason.

[fvictorio]

surely there should be a single way to get the URL regardless of whether it's Hardhat network or something else

But the Hardhat network doesn't have a URL. It's an in-process network, so there's no networking involved.

Also, referencing hre.network.config.url in a Hardhat task where hre is declared as the HardhatRuntimeEnvironment type results in my editor (and probably any modern editor, since they all tend to use the same LSP servers these days) complaining that url doesn't exist:

I think the types of the networks behave like this:

hre.networks.hardhat // HardhatNetworkConfig, doesn't have a URL
hre.networks["something"] // HttpNetworkConfig, has a URL
const someNetwork = hre.networks[stringVariable] // HardhatNetworkConfig | HttpNetworkConfig

// you should be able to narrow the type
if ('url' in someNetwork) {
  // someNetwork: HttpNetworkConfig
} else {
  // someNetwork: HardhatNetworkConfig
}

I haven't checked that this is correct in an actual typescript project, so take it with a grain of salt.

[aspiers]

Just checked - you were indeed correct, and the 'url' in networkConfig trick worked! When this condition is true, then (networkConfig as HttpNetworkConfig).url allows access without tsc complaining.

Thanks!