Is there no return value in the result of a transaction using ethersjs?

Question

The Solidity example code :

// SPDX-License-Identifier: MIT
pragma solidity ^0.8.17;

contract Test {
  uint256 testvalue;

  function testFunc(uint amount) public returns(uint) {
    testvalue = testvalue + amount;
    return testvalue; // read return data
  }
}

etherjs example code :

const TEST = await ethers.getContractAt("Test",address)

const tx = await TEST.testFunc(5);
const result_tx = await tx.wait()

The testFunc function has a return. But there is no value for return on successfully completed transaction with ethers. Is it like that?

Answer 1

see this related question: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/71254497/documentation-for-ethers-getcontractat#:~:text=The%20getContractAt()%20function%20is,not%20included%20in%20their%20documentation.

This is a hardhat ethers only extension, looks like you need to provide a signer or its a read-only contract. Since your function attempts to mutate testvalue, my guess is that it will not be a successful transaction.

https://hardhat.org/hardhat-runner/plugins/nomiclabs-hardhat-ethers#helpers