Cannot read properties of undefined (reading 'formatEther')

Question

const hre = require("hardhat");

// Returns the ether balance of a given address.
async function getBalance(address) {
  const balanceBigInt = await hre.ethers.provider.getBalance(address);
  return hre.ethers.utils.formatEther(balanceBigInt);
}

// Logs the Ether balances for a list of addresses.
async function printBalances(addresses) {
  let index = 0;
  for (const address of addresses) {
    console.log(`Addresses ${index} balance: `, await getBalance(address));
    index++;
  }
}

// Logs the memos stored on-chain from coffee purchases.
async function printMemos(memos) {
  for (const memo of memos) {
    const timestamp = memo.timestamp;
    const tipper = memo.name;
    const tipperAddress = memo.from;
    const message = memo.message;
    console.log(`At ${timestamp}, ${tipper} (${tipperAddress}) said: "${message}"`);
  }
}

async function main() {
  const [owner, tipper, tipper2, tipper3] = await hre.ethers.getSigners();
  // const BuyMeACoffee = await hre.ethers.getContractFactory("BuyMeACoffee");
  const buyMeACoffee = await ethers.deployContract("BuyMeACoffee");
  // Deploy the contract.
  await buyMeACoffee.waitForDeployment();
  console.log("BuyMeACoffee deployed to:", buyMeACoffee.target);
  console.log("5");
  // Check balances before the coffee purchase.
  const addresses = [owner.address, tipper.address, buyMeACoffee.address];
  console.log("== start ==");
  await printBalances(addresses);

  // Buy the owner a few coffees.
  const tip = { value: hre.ethers.utils.parseEther("1") };
  await buyMeACoffee.connect(tipper).buyCoffee("Rahul", "You're a good coder", tip);
  await buyMeACoffee.connect(tipper2).buyCoffee("Suprit", "You're a good coder", tip);
  await buyMeACoffee.connect(tipper3).buyCoffee("Prasad", "You're a good coder", tip);

  // Check balances after the coffee purchase.
  console.log("== bought coffee ==");
  await printBalances(addresses);

  // Withdraw.
  await buyMeACoffee.connect(owner).withdrawTips();

  // Check balances after withdrawal.
  console.log("== withdrawTips ==");
  await printBalances(addresses);

  // Check out the memos.
  console.log("== memos ==");
  const memos = await buyMeACoffee.getMemos();
  printMemos(memos);
}

// We recommend this pattern to be able to use async/await everywhere
// and properly handle errors.
main()
  .then(() => process.exit(0))
  .catch(error => {
    console.error(error);
    process.exit(1);
  });

error->
BuyMeACoffee deployed to: 0x5FbDB2315678afecb367f032d93F642f64180aa3
5
== start ==
TypeError: Cannot read properties of undefined (reading 'formatEther')
    at getBalance (C:\Users\rohan\OneDrive\Documents\CODES\BuyMeACoffee\scripts\deploy.js:6:27)
    at processTicksAndRejections (node:internal/process/task_queues:96:5)
    at printBalances (C:\Users\rohan\OneDrive\Documents\CODES\BuyMeACoffee\scripts\deploy.js:13:49)
    at main (C:\Users\rohan\OneDrive\Documents\CODES\BuyMeACoffee\scripts\deploy.js:40:3)

Answer 1

If you are using version 6 or higher of ethers, you no longer need the "utils" keyword.

const val = hre.ethers.utils.formatEther(100000000000000)
console.log("val:", val)

Check your package.json to find the version of ethers you're using, on version ^6.6.2 I get this error when I try to run the code above.

TypeError: Cannot read properties of undefined (reading 'formatEther')

But when I remove the .utils

const val = hre.ethers.formatEther(100000000000000)
console.log("val:", val)

I get this returned in the terminal:

val: 0.0001

Another way you could write this would be by first importing ethers directly from hardhat:

const { ethers } = require("hardhat")

and this will also return 0.0001 correctly

const val = ethers.formatEther(100000000000000)
console.log("val:", val)