Web3 - Cannot get accounts

Question

I am trying to understand web3 better and tried out the following snipped:

<script type="text/javascript">
    if (typeof web3 !== 'undefined') {
        web3Provider = web3.currentProvider;
    } else {
        // If no injected web3 instance is detected, fall back to Ganache
        web3Provider = new Web3.providers.HttpProvider('http://localhost:8545');
    }
    web3 = new Web3(web3Provider);

    web3.eth.defaulAccount = web3.eth.accounts[0]

    console.log("getBalance:")
    const accounts = web3.eth.accounts
    console.log("accounts", accounts)

    const balance = web3.eth.getBalance(web3.eth.accounts[1])
    console.log("balance", web3.fromWei(balance, "ether"))
</script>

I am running ganache-cli in the background and was expecting to get back a list of accounts and the balance of the account[0].

However, I get back: As you can see above my accounts object is empty and therefore I get an error. Basically I just want to load one account address from the ganache-cli and display its balance.

Any suggestions what is wrong with my code?

I appreciate your replies!

Answer 1

You should be using web3.eth.getAccounts. Most web3 operations are also asynchronous so make sure you await the calls.

(async () => {
  const accounts = await web3.eth.getAccounts();
  console.log(accounts);

  const balance = await web3.eth.getBalance(accounts[0]);
  console.log("balance", web3.utils.fromWei(balance, "ether"));
})();

Answer 2

dApps must now request access to user accounts by calling a new method on the provider: ethereum.enable()

more details here https://medium.com/metamask/https-medium-com-metamask-breaking-change-injecting-web3-7722797916a8

Answer 3

Had the same issue. Use web3.eth.getAccounts()

Answer 4

You can also do this way:

   var defaultAccount = web3.eth.defaultAccount;
console.log(defaultAccount);

// set the default account
web3.eth.defaultAccount = '0x8888f1f195afa192cfee860698584c030f4c9db1';

According to https://github.com/ethereum/wiki/wiki/JavaScript-API#web3ethdefaultaccount

Answer 5

use await and let web3 load all the addresses before it produces the result