Clone factory contract variable initialization

Question

DaoRegistry dao = DaoRegistry(_createClone(identityAddress));

_createClone() returns a payable address, but the DaoRegistry constructor is empty. I haven't been able to find an explanation for what is going on here.

Answer 1

The _createClone functions deploy an EIP 1167 - minimal proxy that target identityAddress.

The contract's bytecode is deployed but the contract's storage is not initialized.

The magic is in the initialize function called by createDao

function createDao(string calldata daoName, address creator) external {
    ..
    DaoRegistry dao = DaoRegistry(_createClone(identityAddress));

    ..

    dao.initialize(creator, msg.sender);
    ..
}

The initialize works here as the "constructor", it is a very common patter used in proxy contracts.

function initialize(address creator, address payer) external {
    require(!initialized, "dao already initialized");
    initialized = true;
    ..
}