Support for IR

[fvictorio]

This is the tracking issue for having full support for solc's IR-based code generation.

We have already released a beta version with some basic support under the ir npm tag. This version can be installed with npm install hardhat@ir.

There are some pending things before we can release this in a stable version of Hardhat:

• Reverts with a reason string sometimes are not correctly handled (see discussion in Revert reasons not detected in external calls with viaIR: true and optimizer enabled #2453). I'm not sure if this was fixed on the ir version or not.
• What are exactly the best settings to have viaIR enabled but not lose important information used by stack traces and error inferring? Can we enable those settings automatically or should users do it?
• solidity-coverage seems to have issues when viaIR is enabled (see for example this comment). It's not clear if this is a problem in Hardhat or in the coverage plugin, or in both. It might also be just a documentation issue.
• At some point the "contract too large" heuristic wasn't working (see Revert due to overflow misdetected as CONTRACT_TOO_LARGE_ERROR on a contract compiled with viaIR: true #2115). I believe this is fixed in the ir version, but we should double-check.

[github-actions]

This issue is also being tracked on Linear.

We use Linear to manage our development process, but we keep the conversations on Github.

LINEAR-ID: 2c88424e-5990-4136-afac-2adf63271e8b

[scotthconner]

The issue I'm having is my tests are now failing with viaIR: true, specifically the ones that check the revertedWith message. Which is a lot of them.

For now, I'm having to turn viaIR off. Help me help us get to the bottom of it!

[scotthconner]

Also, turns out that hardhat@ir doesn't work with my version of solidity-coverage:

pm ERR! While resolving: @nomicfoundation/hardhat-toolbox@1.0.2
npm ERR! Found: solidity-coverage@0.8.2
npm ERR! node_modules/solidity-coverage
npm ERR!   dev solidity-coverage@"^0.8.2" from the root project
npm ERR!
npm ERR! Could not resolve dependency:
npm ERR! peer solidity-coverage@"^0.7.21" from @nomicfoundation/hardhat-toolbox@1.0.2
npm ERR! node_modules/@nomicfoundation/hardhat-toolbox
npm ERR!   @nomicfoundation/hardhat-toolbox@"^1.0.2" from the root project
npm ERR!
npm ERR! Conflicting peer dependency: solidity-coverage@0.7.22
npm ERR! node_modules/solidity-coverage
npm ERR!   peer solidity-coverage@"^0.7.21" from @nomicfoundation/hardhat-toolbox@1.0.2
npm ERR!   node_modules/@nomicfoundation/hardhat-toolbox
npm ERR!     @nomicfoundation/hardhat-toolbox@"^1.0.2" from the root project

[fvictorio]

The issue I'm having is my tests are now failing with viaIR: true, specifically the ones that check the revertedWith message.

That's the first item in the checklist.

Also, turns out that hardhat@ir doesn't work with my version of solidity-coverage:

That's a llimitation of npm when a peer dependency and a pre-release version are mixed. You might need to use npm install --force when installing the hardhat@ir beta version.

[scotthconner]

Yup, thanks. I did --force and that worked.

It also works when running npm hardhat test. But when running coverage I get stack too deep.

[jmendiola222]

Is there a timeline for this to be included in the main release? Now that it's mark as ready I mean

[fvictorio]

@jmendiola222 we want to release this ASAP. Hopefully this or next week; definitely January.

[fruiz08]

do you have any workaround to solve this issue? ethereum/solidity#13858

[fvictorio]

@fruiz08 that seems a solc thing, unrelated to Hardhat.

[hantuzun]

With IR, I get the following exception:

AssertionError: Expected transaction to be reverted with ABC, but other
exception was thrown: ProviderError: Error: Transaction reverted: function
was called with incorrect parameters

from a function as simple as:

function f() public {
  revert("ABC");
}

When IR is not used, or other parts of the contracts are tinkered, or YUL steps are tinkered, the issue resolves. This issue is very similar to #2453 so I suspect it's a Hardhat issue.

I tried many combinations of recent Solidity versions with Hardhat 2.12.6 and 2.12.1-ir.0. My compiler settings are:

viaIR: true,
optimizer: {
  enabled: true,
  runs: 200
}

Currently working around the issue with a custom order of YUL optimization steps.

Let me know if you think if this's a Solidity issue.

[hantuzun]

This's the stack trace from Hardhat 2.12.6:

eth_estimateGas
  Error: Transaction reverted: function was called with incorrect parameters
      at Contract.f
      at processTicksAndRejections (node:internal/process/task_queues:96:5)
      at async EthModule._estimateGasAction (node_modules/hardhat/src/internal/hardhat-network/provider/modules/eth.ts:429:7)
      at async HardhatNetworkProvider._sendWithLogging (node_modules/hardhat/src/internal/hardhat-network/provider/provider.ts:139:22)
      at async HardhatNetworkProvider.request (node_modules/hardhat/src/internal/hardhat-network/provider/provider.ts:116:18)
      at async JsonRpcHandler._handleRequest (node_modules/hardhat/src/internal/hardhat-network/jsonrpc/handler.ts:188:20)
      at async JsonRpcHandler._handleSingleRequest (node_modules/hardhat/src/internal/hardhat-network/jsonrpc/handler.ts:167:17)
      at async Server.JsonRpcHandler.handleHttp (node_modules/hardhat/src/internal/hardhat-network/jsonrpc/handler.ts:52:21)

[jmendiola222]

@jmendiola222 we want to release this ASAP. Hopefully this or next week; definitely January.

It didn't make it to the last release. :( Any update on the plan? @fvictorio

[fvictorio]

I'm planning on merging that PR today, so it will definitely be included in the next release (this time for real 😅).

[codetit4n]

is this fixed?

[fvictorio]

Released in Hardhat v2.13.0 🚀

[thedavidmeister]

this warning when running tests

Your solidity settings have viaIR enabled, which is not fully supported yet. You can still use Hardhat, but some features, like stack traces, might not work correctly.

and losing information about error strings

AssertionError: error string Error: Transaction reverted and Hardhat couldn't infer the reason.

with 2.13.0