#
Signers

A Signer represents...

##
Signer
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The Signer class is abstract and cannot be directly instaniated. Instead use one of the concreate sub-classes, such as the Wallet, VoidSigner or JsonRpcSigner.

signer . connect ( provider ) ⇒ Signer

Sub-classes must implement this, however they may simply throw an error if changing providers is not supported.

signer . getAddress ( ) ⇒ Promise< string<Address> >
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Returns a Promise that resolves to the account address.

This is a Promise so that a Signer can be designed around an asynchronous source, such as hardware wallets.

Sub-classes must implement this.

Signer . isSigner ( object ) ⇒ boolean
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Returns true if an only if object is a Signer.

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Blockchain Methods

signer . getBalance ( [ blockTag = "latest" ] ) ⇒ Promise<BigNumber>
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Returns the balance of this wallet at blockTag.

signer . getChainId ( ) ⇒ Promise< number >
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Returns ths chain ID this wallet is connected to.

signer . getGasPrice ( ) ⇒ Promise<BigNumber>
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Returns the current gas price.

signer . getTransactionCount ( [ blockTag = "latest" ] ) ⇒ Promise< number >
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Returns the number of transactions this account has ever sent. This is the value required to be included in transactions as the `nonce`.

signer . call ( transactionRequest ) ⇒ Promise< string<DataHexstring> >
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Returns the result of calling using the transactionRequest, with this account address being used as the `from` field.

signer . estimateGas ( transactionRequest ) ⇒ Promise<BigNumber>
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Returns the result of estimating the cost to send the transactionRequest, with this account address being used as the `from` field.

signer . resolveName ( ensName ) ⇒ Promise< string<Address> >
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Returns the address associated with the ensName.

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Signing

signer . signMessage ( message ) ⇒ Promise< string<FlatSignature> >

This returns a Promise which resolves to the Flat-Format Signature of message.

Sub-classes must implement this, however they may throw if signing a message is not supported.

Note

If message is a string, it is treated as a string and converted to its representation in UTF8 bytes.

If and only if a message is a Bytes will it be treated as binary data.

For example, the string `"0x1234"` is 6 characters long (and in this case 6 bytes long). This is not equivalent to the array `[ 0x12, 0x34 ]`, which is 2 bytes long.

A common case is to sign a hash. In this case, if the hash is a string, it must be converted to an array first, using the arrayify utility function.

signer . signTransaction ( transactionRequest ) ⇒ Promise< string<DataHexstring> >

Returns a Promise which resolves to the signed transaction of the transactionRequest. This method does not populate any missing fields.

Sub-classes must implement this, however they may throw if signing a transaction is not supported.

signer . sendTransaction ( transactionRequest ) ⇒ Promise<TransactionResponse>

This method populates the transactionRequest with missing fields, using populateTransaction and returns a Promise which resolves to the transaction.

Sub-classes must implement this, however they may throw if signing a transaction is not supported.

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Sub-Classes

It is very important that all important properties of a Signer are immutable. Since Ethereum is very asynchronous and deals with critical data (such as ether and other potentially valuable crypto assets), keeping properties such as the provider and address static helps prevent serious issues.

A sub-class must call `super()`.

signer . checkTransaction ( transactionRequest ) ⇒ TransactionRequest
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This is generally not required to be overridden, but may needed to provide custom behaviour in sub-classes.

This should return a copy of the transactionRequest, with any properties needed by `call`, `estimateGas` and `populateTransaction` (which is used by sendTransaction). It should also throw an error if any unknown key is specified.

The default implementation checks only valid TransactionRequest properties exist and adds `from` to the transaction if it does not exist, or verifies it is equal to the Signer's address if it does exist.

signer . populateTransaction ( transactionRequest ) ⇒ Promise<TransactionRequest>
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This is generally not required to be overridden, but may needed to provide custom behaviour in sub-classes.

This should return a copy of transactionRequest, follow the same procedure as `checkTransaction` and fill in any properties required for sending a transaction. The result should have all promises resolved; if needed the resolveProperties utility function can be used for this.

The default implementation calls `checkTransaction` and resolves to if it is an ENS name, adds `gasPrice`, `nonce`, `gasLimit` and `chainId` based on the related operations on Signer.

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Wallet inherits ExternallyOwnedAccount and Signer
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The Wallet class inherits Signer and can sign transactions and messages using a private key as a standard Externally Owned Account (EOA).

new ethers . Wallet ( privateKey [ , provider ] )
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Create a new Wallet instance for privateKey and optionally connected to the provider.

ethers . Wallet . createRandom ( [ options = {} ] ) ⇒ Wallet
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Returns a new Wallet with a random private key, generated from cryptographically secure entropy sources. If the current environment does not have a secure entropy source, an error is thrown.

ethers . Wallet . fromEncryptedJson ( json , password [ , progress ] ) ⇒ Promise<Wallet>
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Create an instance from an encrypted JSON wallet. If progress is provided it will be called during decryption with a value between 0 and 1 indicating the progress towards completion.

ethers . Wallet . fromMnemonic ( mnemonic [ , path , [ wordlist ] ] ) ⇒ Wallet

Create an instance from a mnemonic phrase.

If path is not specified, the Ethereum default path is used (i.e. m/44'/60'/0'/0/0).

If wordlist is not specified, the English Wordlist is used.

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Properties

wallet . address ⇒ string<Address>

The address for the account this Wallet represents.

wallet . provider ⇒ Provider

The provider this wallet is connected to, which will ge used for any Blockchain Methods methods. This can be null.

Note

A Wallet instance is immuatable, so if you wish to change the Provider, you may use the connect method to create a new instance connected to the desired provider.

wallet . publicKey ⇒ string<DataHexstring< 65 > >

The uncompressed public key for this Wallet represents.

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Methods

wallet . encrypt ( password , [ options = {} , [ progress ] ] ) ⇒ Promise< string >

Encrypt the wallet using password returning a Promise which resolves to a JSON wallet.

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VoidSigner inherits Signer
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A VoidSigner is a simple Signer which cannot sign.

It is useful as a read-only signer, when an API requires a Signer as a parameter, but it is known only read-only operations will be carried.

For example, the `call` operation will automatically have the provided address passed along during the execution.

new ethers . VoidSigner ( address ) ⇒ VoidSigner

Create a new instance of a VoidSigner for address.

voidSigner . address ⇒ string<Address>

The address of this VoidSigner.

##
ExternallyOwnedAccount

This is an interface which contains a minimal set of properties required for Externally Owned Accounts which can have certain operations performed, such as encoding as a JSON wallet.

eoa . address ⇒ string<Address>

The Address of this EOA.

eoa . privateKey ⇒ string<DataHexstring< 32 > >

The privateKey of this EOA

eoa . mnemonic ⇒ Mnemonic

Optional. The account HD mnemonic, if it has one and can be determined. Some sources do not encode the mnemonic, such as an HD extended keys.

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