In solidity smart contracts how do you access internal state variables declared in the constructor?

Question

I'm working with a solidity contract that declares a state variable in the constructor like this this:

    constructor(
    address vault,
    address proxy
)
    public
    MarginAdmin()
{
    state = MarginState.State({
        VAULT: vault,
        PROXY: proxy
    });
}

My understanding is that this state variable is internal and will not have a getter created. How do I access this state variable from outside the contract like from a dApp?

Answer 1

You should simply include those variables outside of the constructor function as a global variable for the contract.

Take a look at a pretty simple to understand, and very commonly used ownable contract: https://github.com/OpenZeppelin/openzeppelin-solidity/blob/master/contracts/ownership/Ownable.sol

contract Ownable {
  address public owner;


  event OwnershipRenounced(address indexed previousOwner);
  event OwnershipTransferred(
    address indexed previousOwner,
    address indexed newOwner
  );


  /**
   * @dev The Ownable constructor sets the original `owner` of the contract to the sender
   * account.
   */
  constructor() public {
    owner = msg.sender;
}
...

As you can see the address public owner variable lives outside the constructor function, and instead just gets set (rather than declared) within the constructor.

Would this pattern work for your scenario, or is there some specific need to initialize the variable as a part of the constructor function?

Answer 2

State variables cannot be declared inside a constructor (or other function). They have to be declared at the contract level. The code you shared seems to make use of an already-declared variable.

Presumably you'll see something like MarginState public state; outside of the constructor. That's where the state variable called state is declared.

To fetch it from outside the contract, just call the automatically-generated getter state(). Note that if state is not declared as public, then you won't be able to do this.

See https://programtheblockchain.com/posts/2018/01/02/making-smart-contracts-with-public-variables/ for more about public state variables.