Compile smart contract in the console browser

Question

I use metamask with chrome. In console browser when I run this code

var source = "" + 
    "contract test {\n" +
    "   function multiply(uint a) returns(uint d) {\n" +
    "       return a * 7;\n" +
    "   }\n" +
    "}\n";
var compiled = web3.eth.compile.solidity(source, function(err,res){
  console.log(err);
  console.log(res);
})

I have this error :

Error: Error while compiling code.(…)

Is it a way to compile and deploy a smart contract directly in the the console browser ?

Answer 1

You definitely can compile solidity from MetaMask.

MetaMask passes that content to its hosted RPC for compilation, in this case, a Parity node.

In this case, the error message is not quite ideal, and I'll open a bug on MetaMask for that.

Opening the MetaMask background process, I found the error being thrown by Parity is "No such file or directory", and I'm not sure why that would be thrown, this is a strange error to get for some solidity code, I'd recommend asking the Parity team for a more descriptive error.

To get the full output, you can run this in your console to simulate the same call to the backend:

curl -X POST  -H "Content-Type: application/json"  --data '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","method":"eth_compileSolidity","params":["contract test { function multiply(uint a) returns(uint d) { return a * 7; } }"],"id":1}' https://morden.infura.io

Where you can replace morden.infura.io with your own parity node if you'd like.