Convert wei to ether in contract

Question

I'm taking my first steps in Ethereum development.

What I'm trying to do is write a function that accepts an address and send it 1 ETH. I don't understand how to check if the contract has sufficient funds, tx.origin.balance is in wei format, how can I convert wei into eth.

function refillAccount(address receiver) payable returns(bool isRefilled) {
    if (tx.origin.balance < [1 eth]) {
        refilledAccounts[receiver] = false;
        return false;
    }

    if ( !refilledAccounts[receiver] ) {
        refilledAccounts[receiver] = true;
        if( !receiver.send(1 ether) ) 
        throw;
        return true;
    }
}

Answer 1

The base unit for currency in Solidity is Wei. That means if you're dealing with balances, and you don't specify a unit, then it defaults to Wei.

That said, you can specify units explicitly: wei, finney, szabo and ether. As long as you use ether (not "eth") in your contract, the comparison will work fine.

For the actual conversion between denominations, this previous answer has a comprehensive list. There is also a conversion tool, here: https://eth-converter.com/

Answer 2

Totally agree with Richard. Contracts usually work best in Wei using integers. Conversion to/from Eth should usually be done on the client side, when communicating with users.

The value you're looking for is called msg.value - the amount received into the contract with the transaction. The code below checks it's the right amount and only forwards funds it actually received. In the unlikely event that something goes haywire with the funds forwarding, the funds will be returned to the sender.

tx.origin is dangerous. msg.sender is almost always preferred.

It's not thoroughly tested but hopefully helps you get where you're going:

pragma solidity ^0.4.6;

contract Practice {

    function refillAccount(address receiver) payable returns(bool isRefilled) {

        if(msg.value != 1 ether) throw; // accept exactly 1 ether and nothing else
        // the sender has sent us 1 ether, so we can pass it on.
        if(!receiver.send(msg.value)) {
            throw; // if we can't pay it forward, send it back
        }
        // it happened
        return true;
    }
}

Answer 3

If you want to convert Wei into ether just to make it more readable, you can try something with the balance like this -->

Note - This function does an integer division. So, lets say you have 2.00003232 ether. It will return 2 ether and you get the idea.