calling other contract's function dynamically

Question

Is it possible to create a function in Solidity that would call an arbitrary function on an arbitrary contract with all the parameters?

In JavaScript I would write something like this

function callArbitrary(contract, func, params){
    contract[func](params);
}

is there a solidity version of that?

Answer 1

This is generally not recommended if you're not sure what you are doing, since it can open a lot of security holes, and it is best to only call contracts that are known beforehand.

That said, the technique looks like this:

address myContract = 0xabcdef....;
myContract.call.gas(msg.gas-3000).value(1 ether)(bytes4(sha3("myFunction(uint256,bytes32,string)")), 42, 0xabc, "hello")

Essentially, you use the call method of an address, then use the gas and value properties to add gas and value (you may ommit the value if it is 0). Then you pass in the first 4 bytes of the sha3 hash of the function you wish to call.