Types

Vyper is a statically typed language. The type of each variable (state and local) must be specified or at least known at compile-time. Vyper provides several elementary types which can be combined to form complex types.

In addition, types can interact with each other in expressions containing operators.

Value Types

The following types are also called value types because variables of these types will always be passed by value, i.e. they are always copied when they are used as function arguments or in assignments.

Boolean

Keyword: bool

A boolean is a type to store a logical/truth value.

Values

The only possible values are the constants True and False.

Operators

Operator Description
x not y Logical negation
x and y Logical conjunction
x or y Logical disjunction
x == y Equality
x != y Inequality

Short-circuiting of boolean operators (or and and) is consistent with the behavior of Python.

Signed Integer (128 bit)

Keyword: int128

A signed integer (128 bit) is a type to store positive and negative integers.

Values

Signed integer values between -2127 and (2127 - 1), inclusive.

Interger literals cannot have a decimal point even if the decimal value is zero. For example, 2.0 cannot be interpreted as an integer.

Operators

Comparisons

Comparisons return a boolean value.

Operator Description
x < y Less than
x <= y Less than or equal to
x == y Equals
x != y Does not equal
x >= y Greater than or equal to
x > y Greater than

x and y must be of the type int128.

Arithmetic Operators
Operator Description
x + y Addition
x - y Subtraction
-x Unary minus/Negation
x * y Multiplication
x / y Division
x**y Exponentiation
x % y Modulo

x and y must be of the type int128.

Unsigned Integer (256 bit)

Keyword: uint256

An unsigned integer (256 bit) is a type to store non-negative integers.

Values

Integer values between 0 and (2256-1).

Interger literals cannot have a decimal point even if the decimal value is zero. For example, 2.0 cannot be interpreted as an integer.

Note

Integer literals are interpreted as int128 by default. In cases where uint256 is more appropriate, such as assignment, the literal might be interpreted as uint256. Example: _variable: uint256 = _literal. In order to explicitly cast a literal to a uint256 use convert(_literal, uint256).

Operators

Comparisons

Comparisons return a boolean value.

Operator Description
x < y Less than
x <= y Less than or equal to
x == y Equals
x != y Does not equal
x >= y Greater than or equal to
x > y Greater than

x and y must be of the type uint256.

Arithmetic Operators
Operator Description
x + y Addition
x - y Subtraction
x * y Multiplication
x / y Division
x**y Exponentiation
x % y Modulo

x, y and z must be of the type uint256.

Decimals

Keyword: decimal

A decimal is a type to store a decimal fixed point value.

Values

A value with a precision of 10 decimal places between -2127 and (2127 - 1).

In order for a literal to be interpreted as decimal it must include a decimal point.

Operators

Comparisons

Comparisons return a boolean value.

Operator Description
x < y Less than
x <= y Less or equal
x == y Equals
x != y Does not equal
x >= y Greater or equal
x > y Greater than

x and y must be of the type decimal.

Arithmetic Operators
Operator Description
x + y Addition
x - y Subtraction
-x Unary minus/Negation
x * y Multiplication
x / y Division
x % y Modulo

x and y must be of the type decimal.

Address

Keyword: address

The address type holds an Ethereum address.

Values

An address type can hold an Ethereum address which equates to 20 bytes or 160 bits. Address literals must be written in hexadecimal notation with a leading 0x and must be checksummed.

Members
Member Type Description
balance uint256 Balance of an address
codehash bytes32 Keccak of code at an address, EMPTY_BYTES32 if no contract is deployed
codesize uint256 Size of code deployed an address, in bytes
is_contract bool Boolean indicating if a contract is deployed at an address

Syntax as follows: _address.<member>, where _address is of the type address and <member> is one of the above keywords.

Note

Operations such as SELFDESTRUCT and CREATE2 allow for the removal and replacement of bytecode at an address. You should never assume that values of address members will not change in the future.

32-bit-wide Byte Array

Keyword: bytes32 This is a 32-bit-wide byte array that is otherwise similar to byte arrays.

Example:

# Declaration
hash: bytes32
# Assignment
self.hash = _hash

Operators

Keyword Description
keccak256(x) Return the keccak256 hash as bytes32.
concat(x, ...) Concatenate multiple inputs.
slice(x, start=_start, len=_len) Return a slice of _len starting at _start.

Where x is a byte array and _start as well as _len are integer values.

Byte Arrays

Keyword: Bytes

A byte array with a fixed size.

The syntax being Bytes[maxLen], where maxLen is an integer which denotes the maximum number of bytes. On the ABI level the Fixed-size bytes array is annotated as bytes.

Bytes literals may be given as bytes strings, hexadecimal, or binary.

bytes_string: Bytes[100] = b"\x01"
hex_bytes: Bytes[100] = 0x01
binary_bytes: Bytes[100] = 0b00000001

Strings

Keyword: String

Fixed-size strings can hold strings with equal or fewer characters than the maximum length of the string. On the ABI level the Fixed-size bytes array is annotated as string.

example_str: String[100] = "Test String"

Reference Types

Reference types do not fit into 32 bytes. Because of this, copying their value is not as feasible as with value types. Therefore only the location, i.e. the reference, of the data is passed.

Fixed-size Lists

Fixed-size lists hold a finite number of elements which belong to a specified type.

Lists can be declared with _name: _ValueType[_Integer]. Multidimensional lists are also possible.

# Defining a list
exampleList: int128[3]

# Setting values
exampleList = [10, 11, 12]
exampleList[2] = 42

# Returning a value
return exampleList[0]

Structs

Structs are custom defined types that can group several variables.

Struct types can be used inside mappings and arrays. Structs can contain arrays and other structs, but not mappings.

Struct members can be accessed via struct.argname.

Mappings

Mappings are hash tables that are virtually initialized such that every possible key exists and is mapped to a value whose byte-representation is all zeros: a type’s default value.

The key data is not stored in a mapping, instead its keccak256 hash used to look up a value. For this reason mappings do not have a length or a concept of a key or value being “set”.

Mapping types are declared as HashMap[_KeyType, _ValueType].

  • _KeyType can be any base or bytes type. Mappings, interfaces or structs are not support as key types.
  • _ValueType can actually be any type, including mappings.

Note

Mappings are only allowed as state variables.

# Defining a mapping
exampleMapping: HashMap[int128, decimal]

# Accessing a value
exampleMapping[0] = 10.1

Note

Mappings have no concept of length and so cannot be iterated over.

Initial Values

Unlike most programming languages, Vyper does not have a concept of null. Instead, every variable type has a default value. To check if a variable is empty, you must compare it to the default value for it’s given type.

To reset a variable to it’s default value, assign to it the built-in empty() function which constructs a zero value for that type.

Note

Memory variables must be assigned a value at the time they are declared.

Here you can find a list of all types and default values:

Type Default Value
address 0x0000000000000000000000000000000000000000
bool False
bytes32 0x0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
decimal 0.0
int128 1
uint256 1

Note

In Bytes the array starts with the bytes all set to '\x00'

Note

In reference types all the type’s members are set to their initial values.

Type Conversions

All type conversions in Vyper must be made explicitly using the built-in convert(a: atype, btype) function. Currently, the following type conversions are supported:

In (atype) Out (btype) Allowable Values Additional Notes
bool decimal All 0.0 or 1.0
bool int128 All 0 or 1
bool uint256 All 0 or 1
bool bytes32 All 0x00 or 0x01
bool Bytes All  
decimal bool All Returns a != 0.0
decimal int128 All Value is truncated
decimal uint256 a >= 0.0 Value is truncated
decimal bytes32 All  
decimal Bytes All  
int128 bool All Returns a != 0
int128 decimal All  
int128 uint256 a >= 0 Cannot convert negative values
int128 bytes32 All  
int128 Bytes All  
uint256 bool All Returns a != 0
uint256 decimal a <= MAX_DECIMAL  
uint256 int128 a <= MAX_INT128  
uint256 bytes32 All  
uint256 Bytes All  
bytes32 bool All True if a is not empty
bytes32 decimal All  
bytes32 int128 All  
bytes32 uint256 All  
bytes32 Bytes All