eth-command-line

An instant-gratification command line for interacting with ethereum smart-contracts and accounts

• Prerequisites
• Quick-Start
• Introduction
  • Quick Example: Import a contract ABI and call a constant method of a smart contract to check its state
• Tab completion is your friend.
• Upgrade / Downgrade
• RTFM

Prerequisites

You need a Java runtime environment installed on your machine. If you don't already have one, you can download a JRE (or a full Java Development Kit) from Oracle.

eth-command-line will run under Java 8 or Java 11.

Quick-Start

1. Clone or download this project

2. In the top-level project directory, make sure that the shell script eth-command-line has execute permissions. (If not, on a Unix-like system, type chmod +x ./eth-command-line)

3. Execute the shell script eth-command-line. The first time you do this, a whole bunch of downloads will likely be triggered

4. At the prompt, you can begin typing ethereum-related command. To see a list of all commands, type eth<tab>. To see a description of all commands, type tasks -V eth

   Note: sbt-ethereum commands are really verbose! They are not intended to be typed. Use the key, Luke! For example, to enter ethKeystoreWalletV3Create (yuk, right?), just type et<tab>K<tab>W<tab>C<tab>. Another way of visualizing this is ethKeystoreWalletV3Create. Only the keys in bold need to be typed, the rest get taken care of by <tab>. sbt-ethereum tries very hard to require very few non-<tab> keypresses, usually just one capital letter takes you down a level of its hierarchically organized commands.

5. For operations that require the payment of Ether, such as sending ether (ethTransactionEtherSend) or invoking state-changing smart-contract methods (ethTransactionInvoke), you will need to define the ethereum address from which the operation will originate. You can create a new address using ethKeystoreWalletV3Create command.

   sbt:eth-command-line> ethKeystoreWalletV3Create
   [info] Generated keypair for address '0xe10280702f233573b2dca5a81bda8dd3a0867fcc'
   [info] Generating V3 wallet, alogorithm=scrypt, n=262144, r=8, p=1, dklen=32
   Enter passphrase for new wallet: *******************
   Please retype to confirm: *******************
   [success] Total time: 30 s, completed Feb 23, 2018 6:50:33 PM
   
   

   You can also import existing geth wallets into the sbt-ethereum repository directory. See the sbt-ethereum docs.

   Be sure to back up your sbt-ethereum repository directory to avoid losing your wallets and accounts!

   ...but using your own Ethereum address of course!

Introduction

eth-command-line is just a thin wrapper around sbt-ethereum.

To use sbt-ethereum, you have to go through the ceremony of setting up a project directory and run a synced ethereum node. This project takes care of that for you.

In order for the instant gratification thing to work, sbt-ethereum may be preconfigured to interact with a public ethereum node. No guarantees are made about how long this Ethereum node will be exposed for public use! It's best to get access to a more reliable node, and define that as your default node URL.

Quick Example: Import a contract ABI and call a constant method of a smart contract to check its state

sbt:eth-command-line> ethContractAbiImport
Contract address in hex: 0x82ea8ab1e836272322f376a5f71d5a34a71688f1
Contract ABI: [{"outputs":[],"constant":false,"payable":false,"inputs":[{"name":"fortune","type":"string"}],"name":"addFortune","stateMutability":"nonpayable","type":"function"},{"outputs":[{"name":"count","type":"uint256"}],"constant":true,"payable":false,"inputs":[],"name":"countFortunes","stateMutability":"view","type":"function"},{"outputs":[{"name":"fortune","type":"string"}],"constant":true,"payable":false,"inputs":[],"name":"drawFortune","stateMutability":"view","type":"function"},{"outputs":[{"name":"","type":"string"}],"constant":true,"payable":false,"inputs":[{"name":"","type":"uint256"}],"name":"fortunes","stateMutability":"view","type":"function"},{"inputs":[{"name":"author","type":"address","indexed":false},{"name":"fortune","type":"string","indexed":false}],"name":"FortuneAdded","anonymous":false,"type":"event"},{"payable":false,"inputs":[{"name":"initialFortune","type":"string"}],"stateMutability":"nonpayable","type":"constructor"}]
[info] ABI is now known for the contract at address '0x82ea8ab1e836272322f376a5f71d5a34a71688f1'
[success] Total time: 37 s, completed Dec 29, 2016 9:33:13 AM
sbt:eth-command-line> ethTransactionView 0x57d0dfa84161e565c9f9ba4aab24d6b22654cca1 sayHello
[info] The function 'sayHello' yields 1 result.
[info]  + Result 1 of type 'string' is "Hello, world!!!"
[success] Total time: 1 s, completed Feb 23, 2018 6:59:28 PM

Tab completion is your friend.

If you try to type everything in, you will find this to be an annoyingly verbose command line interface. eth-command-line tasks support completion extensively. When in doubt, just hit a few times in quick succession, and maybe things will get clearer.

Upgrade / Downgrade

To upgrade (or downgrade) versions of sbt-ethereum, just run

$ cd eth-command-line
$ git fetch
$ git checkout 0.3.5

(Substitute whatever version you desire for 0.3.5.)

RTFM

Please just see the sbt-ethereum docs.