Solidity: How can we write a error message in "require"?

Question

Im learning Solidity. As far as I'm aware, it's recommended using "require" to handle errors. But, I'd like to inform the users about the kind of errors they make, e.g. an argument is invalid or out of range, etc.

Question: How to write a error message in error handling functions like "require"?

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Also, I need to know if it makes sense to have such error messages in contract?

Answer 1

It is included since Solidity 0.4.22. There is a merged branch adding this feature in the milestone.

The documentation states

There are two other ways to trigger exceptions: The revert function can be used to flag an error and revert the current call. In the future it might be possible to also include details about the error in a call to revert. The throw keyword can also be used as an alternative to revert().

In the past it was used like this

require(
    msg.sender == _account
);

And in Solidity 0.4.22 and newer it can be used like this

require(
    msg.sender == _account,
    "Sender not authorized."
);

Adding the reason as the second parameter

Answer 2

You can use Events to log error messages. There is nothing like the print statement in solidity, so you can't directly tell users about the error messages. However, Events works similar to logs in other languages, which helps to log such cases and notify errors.

In one of my project, we chose to have status codes for the different type of errors and then every time in failure cases, we logged those status codes with the help of events.

You can see an implementation here at this repo -

Contract code - https://github.com/Imaginea/lms/blob/master/contracts/MembersLibrary.sol#L27

Note: These status codes can be accessed as well from the response, as shown here -

https://github.com/Imaginea/lms/blob/master/test/testOrganisation.js#L45 (Test Case)

Hope this helps.

Answer 3

As of November 5 2017, it's not yet possible.

Keep an eye on:

https://github.com/ethereum/solidity/issues/1686 Support reason string in revert (and perhaps require / assert)

When it is implemented, syntax like require(x>0, "positive number needed"); will probably work.

Answer 4

The best way to get an error message back is to trigger an event based on the result or return a string. The usual reason for using require versus assert is that if require fails, it will refund the remaining gas and revert all changes. On the other hand, assert will use up all the remaining gas before reverting all changes. A small edit to add, is the recommendation of adding a rejection message to the require, it is optional as of version 0.5.8, but the compilers and jet-brains flags up a warning if you don't, and it may become mandatory in the future, The syntax is the same though.

assert(myAmount < __someValue);

require(myAmount < __someValue,"Insufficient funds to allow transfer");

And this is pretty good description to help you along: How to use Assert and require

Answer 5

Error reason strings for revert and require has been introduced. For more details: https://medium.com/secureblocks/solidity-0-4-22-enhancements-94d2b9b8b6fe

Answer 6

I was compiling my code with solidity ^0.4.24 and I had to remove error messages from require() as when I tried to deploy my contract with web3.eth.Contract().deploy.send() I would get a 'The contract code couldn't be stored, please check your gas limit.' error.