Encode method signature and parameters using Go-Ethereum

Question

Is there any way to use the Go-Ethereum library to get the string I have to send to JSON RPC to call a contract method. I mean, Go-Ethereum comes with a CLI, so there must be some built-in functions that already do this.

I'm currently writing a wrapper in GO for the JSON RPC and would like a simple way to encode the method signature and parameters to prepare them for the RPC call to the contract.

Thanks in advance

EDIT: I just saw that release 1.4.1 added the functionality of binding to Contract ABI and interacting with the contract through Go (https://github.com/ethereum/go-ethereum/releases). I will mark this question as answered

Answer 1

Here's a full example of how to compile a smart contract to a Go package using abigen from go-ethereum and then send a transaction to a method, where the underlying binding handles the encoding and broadcasting for you.

Store.sol

pragma solidity ^0.4.24;

contract Store {
  event ItemSet(bytes32 key, bytes32 value);

  string public version;
  mapping (bytes32 => bytes32) public items;

  constructor(string _version) public {
    version = _version;
  }

  function setItem(bytes32 key, bytes32 value) external {
    items[key] = value;
    emit ItemSet(key, value);
  }
}

Compilation

solc --abi Store.sol | awk '/JSON ABI/{x=1;next}x' > Store.abi
solc --bin Store.sol | awk '/Binary:/{x=1;next}x' > Store.bin
abigen --bin=Store.bin --abi=Store.abi --pkg=store --out=Store.go

main.go

package main

import (
    "fmt"
    "log"

    "github.com/ethereum/go-ethereum/accounts/abi/bind"
    "github.com/ethereum/go-ethereum/common"
    "github.com/ethereum/go-ethereum/ethclient"

    store "./contracts" // for demo
)

func main() {
    client, err := ethclient.Dial("https://rinkeby.infura.io")
    if err != nil {
        log.Fatal(err)
    }

    privateKey, err := crypto.HexToECDSA("fad9c8855b740a0b7ed4c221dbad0f33a83a49cad6b3fe8d5817ac83d38b6a19")
    if err != nil {
        log.Fatal(err)
    }

    publicKey := privateKey.Public()
    publicKeyECDSA, ok := publicKey.(*ecdsa.PublicKey)
    if !ok {
        log.Fatal("error casting public key to ECDSA")
    }

    fromAddress := crypto.PubkeyToAddress(*publicKeyECDSA)
    nonce, err := client.PendingNonceAt(context.Background(), fromAddress)
    if err != nil {
        log.Fatal(err)
    }

    gasPrice, err := client.SuggestGasPrice(context.Background())
    if err != nil {
        log.Fatal(err)
    }

    auth := bind.NewKeyedTransactor(privateKey)
    auth.Nonce = big.NewInt(int64(nonce))
    auth.Value = big.NewInt(0)     // in wei
    auth.GasLimit = uint64(300000) // in units
    auth.GasPrice = gasPrice

    address := common.HexToAddress("0x147B8eb97fD247D06C4006D269c90C1908Fb5D54")
    instance, err := store.NewStore(address, client)
    if err != nil {
        log.Fatal(err)
    }

    key := [32]byte{}
    value := [32]byte{}
    copy(key[:], []byte("foo"))
    copy(value[:], []byte("bar"))

    tx, err := instance.SetItem(auth, key, value)
    if err != nil {
        log.Fatal(err)
    }

    fmt.Printf("tx sent: %s", tx.Hash().Hex()) // tx sent: 0x8d490e535678e9a24360e955d75b27ad307bdfb97a1dca51d0f3035dcee3e870

    result, err := instance.Items(nil, key)
    if err != nil {
        log.Fatal(err)
    }

    fmt.Println(string(result[:])) // "bar"
}

Check out the Ethereum Development with Go guide book for more examples.