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Global constants

Description of the Global Constants feature​

The Global Constants feature is introduced in the Hangzhou protocol. Its goal is to allow users to originate larger contracts or share code between contracts by using registered constants.

This feature brings the following:

  • A new kind of operation, named register_global_constant, allows users to register Micheline expressions in the global table of constants.
  • A new primitive, called constant, allows contracts to reference these constants by their index.

Here is a general scenario example of using the global constant:

  • Alice wants to originate a contract, but its code is so large that it does not fit the Tezos size limit for contracts.
  • Alice registers a chosen expression from her contract to the global table of constants by sending a register_global_constant operation to the node.
  • The precedent operation returns the index of the registered constant, which corresponds to the hash of the expression (Blake2b hash + Base58 encode + prefix expr)
  • Alice replaces the newly registered expression in the code of her contract with the primitive constant and the corresponding hash.
  • Alice can now originate her contract, as its size has been compressed.

How to register a global constant with Taquito?​

Contract API​

A registerGlobalConstant method is available on the ContractProvider class. A value representing the Micheline expression to register in its JSON format is minimally required as a parameter. The registerGlobalConstant method returns an instance of RegisterGlobalConstantOperation containing a globalConstantHash member that corresponds to the index(hash) of the newly registered constant.

Note that an expression can only be registered once and will result in an error from the node if trying to register the same constant multiple times.

Note that the conversion between Micheline and its JSON format can be achieved using the @mavrykdynamics/taquito-michel-codec if needed.

Here is a simple example:

Note that this example is for demonstration purposes but has no real value as the registered expression is very small.

const op = await Tezos.contract.registerGlobalConstant({
    value: { "prim": "or",
                "args":
                  [ { "prim": "int", "annots": [ "%decrement" ] },
                    { "prim": "int", "annots": [ "%increment" ] } ] }
    });


await op.confirmation();


const hash = op.globalConstantHash; // expr...

The registered expression can be replaced by its corresponding hash in the contract code as follows:

[ { "prim": "parameter",
    "args":
      [ { "prim": "or",
          "args":
            [ { "prim": "constant",
                "args": [ { "string": "expr..." } ] },
              { "prim": "unit", "annots": [ "%reset" ] } ] } ] },
  { "prim": "storage", "args": [ { "prim": "int" } ] },
  { "prim": "code",
    "args":
      [ [ { "prim": "UNPAIR" },
          { "prim": "IF_LEFT",
            "args":
              [ [ { "prim": "IF_LEFT",
                    "args":
                      [ [ { "prim": "SWAP" }, { "prim": "SUB" } ],
                        [ { "prim": "ADD" } ] ] } ],
                [ { "prim": "DROP", "args": [ { "int": "2" } ] },
                  { "prim": "PUSH",
                    "args": [ { "prim": "int" }, { "int": "0" } ] } ] ] },
          { "prim": "NIL", "args": [ { "prim": "operation" } ] },
          { "prim": "PAIR" } ] ] } ]

Batch API​

It is also possible to register global constants using the batch API.

Here is an example using the withRegisterGlobalConstant method: 

import { OpKind } from '@mavrykdynamics/taquito';


const batchOp = await Tezos.contract.batch()
.withRegisterGlobalConstant({
    value: {
        prim: 'pair',
        args: [
            {
                prim: 'pair',
                args: [{ prim: 'address', annots: ['%address0'] }, { prim: 'address', annots: ['%address1'] }]
            },
        { prim: 'contract', args: [{ prim: 'nat' }], annots: ['%nat2'] }
        ]
    }
}).send();


await batchOp.confirmation();

Here is an example without using the withRegisterGlobalConstant method: 

import { OpKind } from '@mavrykdynamics/taquito';


const batchOp = await Tezos.contract.batch([
    {
        kind: OpKind.REGISTER_GLOBAL_CONSTANT,
        value: {
            prim: 'list',
            args: [{ prim: 'nat' }]
        }
    },
    // other batched operations
]).send();


await batchOp.confirmation();

How to deploy a contract using the storage property if I use global constant in the storage part of the code?​

Taquito needs the Michelson value of global constants to encode the storage argument properly into the corresponding Michelson data. To do so, you will need to set a global constant provider on the TezosToolkit instance.

Note that there is no RPC endpoint available at that time (v11.1.0) that allows fetching global constant values based on their hashes. Taquito provides a default global constant provider named DefaultGlobalConstantsProvider where the hash and corresponding JSON Michelson value must be manually provisioned using its loadGlobalConstant method.

Instead of using the DefaultGlobalConstantsProvider, a user can inject a custom provider. The global constant provider needs to implement the GlobalConstantsProvider interface and define a getGlobalConstantByHash method. Different global constant providers (i.e., built on the RPC or indexers) will be included in Taquito in the future.

Here is a complete example:

import { TezosToolkit, DefaultGlobalConstantsProvider } from '@mavrykdynamics/taquito';


// create an instance of the `DefaultGlobalConstantsProvider`, load the global constants used in the contract, inject the instance on the TezosToolkit
const expression = { "prim": "int" }
const constantHash = 'expruu5BTdW7ajqJ9XPTF3kgcV78pRiaBW3Gq31mgp3WSYjjUBYxre';


const Tezos = new TezosToolkit('rpc_url');
const globalConstantProvider = new DefaultGlobalConstantsProvider();
globalConstantProvider.loadGlobalConstant({
  [constantHash]: expression
})
Tezos.setGlobalConstantsProvider(globalConstantProvider);


// The `getGlobalConstantByHash` method of the configured global constant provider is internally called when preparing the operation. This allows accessing the right Michelson type to encode the storage object into the corresponding Michelson data properly.
const op = await Tezos.contract.originate({
     code: [{
         prim: 'parameter',
         args: [{
             prim: 'or',
             args: [{
                 prim: 'or',
                 args: [
                     { prim: 'int', annots: ['%decrement'] },
                     { prim: 'int', annots: ['%increment'] }
                 ]
             },
             { prim: 'unit', annots: ['%reset'] }]
         }]
     },
     { prim: 'storage', args: [{ prim: 'constant', args: [{ string: constantHash }] }] },
     {
         prim: 'code',
         args: [
             [
                 { prim: 'UNPAIR' },
                 {
                     prim: 'constant',
                     args: [{ string: constantHash2 }]
                 },
                 { prim: 'NIL', args: [{ prim: 'operation' }] },
                 { prim: 'PAIR' }
             ]
         ]
     }
     ],
     storage: 4
 });


await op.confirmation();

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