Scoping and Declarations¶
Variable Declaration¶
The first time a variable is referenced you must declare its type:
data: int128
In the above example, we declare the variable data
with a type of int128
.
Depending on the active scope, an initial value may or may not be assigned:
For storage variables (declared in the module scope), an initial value cannot be set
For memory variables (declared within a function), an initial value must be set
For calldata variables (function input arguments), a default value may be given
Declaring Public Variables¶
Storage variables can be marked as public
during declaration:
data: public(int128)
The compiler automatically creates getter functions for all public storage variables. For the example above, the compiler will generate a function called data
that does not take any arguments and returns an int128
, the value of the state variable data.
For public arrays, you can only retrieve a single element via the generated getter. This mechanism exists to avoid high gas costs when returning an entire array. The getter will accept an argument to specify which element to return, for example data(0)
.
Declaring Immutable Variables¶
Variables can be marked as immutable
during declaration:
DATA: immutable(uint256)
@external
def __init__(_data: uint256):
DATA = _data
Variables declared as immutable are similar to constants, except they are assigned a value in the constructor of the contract. Immutable values must be assigned a value at construction and cannot be assigned a value after construction.
The contract creation code generated by the compiler will modify the contract’s runtime code before it is returned by appending all values assigned to immutables to the runtime code returned by the constructor. This is important if you are comparing the runtime code generated by the compiler with the one actually stored in the blockchain.
Tuple Assignment¶
You cannot directly declare tuple types. However, in certain cases you can use literal tuples during assignment. For example, when a function returns multiple values:
@internal
def foo() -> (int128: int128):
return 2, 3
@external
def bar():
a: int128 = 0
b: int128 = 0
# the return value of `foo` is assigned using a tuple
(a, b) = self.foo()
# Can also skip the parenthesis
a, b = self.foo()
Scoping Rules¶
Vyper follows C99 scoping rules. Variables are visible from the point right after their declaration until the end of the smallest block that contains the declaration.
Module Scope¶
Variables and other items declared outside of a code block (functions, constants, event and struct definitions, …), are visible even before they were declared. This means you can use module-scoped items before they are declared.
An exception to this rule is that you can only call functions that have already been declared.
Accessing Module Scope from Functions¶
Values that are declared in the module scope of a contract, such as storage variables and functions, are accessed via the self
object:
a: int128
@internal
def foo() -> int128
return 42
@external
def foo() -> int128:
b: int128 = self.foo()
return self.a + b
Name Shadowing¶
It is not permitted for a memory or calldata variable to shadow the name of a storage variable. The following examples will not compile:
a: int128
@external
def foo() -> int128:
# memory variable cannot have the same name as a storage variable
a: int128 = self.a
return a
a: int128
@external
def foo(a: int128) -> int128:
# input argument cannot have the same name as a storage variable
return a
Function Scope¶
Variables that are declared within a function, or given as function input arguments, are visible within the body of that function. For example, the following contract is valid because each declaration of a
only exists within one function’s body.
@external
def foo(a: int128):
pass
@external
def bar(a: uint256):
pass
@external
def baz():
a: bool = True
The following examples will not compile:
@external
def foo(a: int128):
# `a` has already been declared as an input argument
a: int128 = 21
@external
def foo(a: int128):
a = 4
@external
def bar():
# `a` has not been declared within this function
a += 12
Block Scopes¶
Logical blocks created by for
and if
statements have their own scope. For example, the following contract is valid because x
only exists within the block scopes for each branch of the if
statement:
@external
def foo(a: bool) -> int128:
if a:
x: int128 = 3
else:
x: bool = False
In a for
statement, the target variable exists within the scope of the loop. For example, the following contract is valid because i
is no longer available upon exiting the loop:
@external
def foo(a: bool) -> int128:
for i in [1, 2, 3]:
pass
i: bool = False
The following contract fails to compile because a
has not been declared outside of the loop.
@external
def foo(a: bool) -> int128:
for i in [1, 2, 3]:
a: int128 = i
a += 3