# Learn: Solidity’s Smart Contract 🤝🏼 by Creating a Will📜!

Hello and welcome👋🏼, I am Adebayo😁. I will be creating a crypto based Will using a simple smart contract in the Solidity programming language.
This article is largely based on the Complete DApp - Solidity & React - Blockchain Development on Udemy.

Summary

• Little introduction to writing a smart contract
• Some common feature of solidity
• Create a smart contract and run it in remix IDE

If you know anything about blockchain, then you might have heard about one of its applications, smart contracts. Smart contracts, just like regular contracts are like agreements🤝🏼 that become valid/active when a condition is met. But with smart contracts, you can automate the execution of a contract after storing it in blockchain. No middleman, no time-delay, tamper proof and efficient making the contract, smart (Sorry, I could not help it😂).

One of the most common IDE for writing smart contracts is the remix IDE hosted on ethereum.org. This is the fastest way to get started with writing Smart contracts with solidity. It comes with all you need, a web browser-based compiler and about 15 free Ethereum account loaded with 100eth coin. These coins are on the Testnet not the Mainnet so don't even think of spending them🙄.

Hint: You may decide to write you code in VS Code, for easier editing and copy the code to the remix IDE
You will find the extension, Solidity support for Visual Studio code by Juan Franco very useful. It supports auto-completion syntax highlighting, Snippets and etc.
There is also the Ethereum Remix Project extension for Visual Studio Code extension. It is in beta-release at the moment of this writing.

Let us dive in by creating our solidity file. I will be naming it will.sol.

Solidity files end with the .sol extension.

// SPDX-License-Identifier: Unlicense
pragma solidity ^0.8.7;

contract Will {
  code...
}

• Before writing your contract, it is mandatory to state the solidity version as this will determine the version of compiler that compiles the code. You should also insert the SPDX-License-Identifier which should be in a comment as a good practice. Checkout a full list of licenses here

 contract Will {

   ...code

    // define variables
    address owner;
    uint fortune;
    bool deceased;

    constructor() payable {
        // set variables
        owner = msg.sender; // represents address called
        fortune = msg.value; // how much ether is being represents
        deceased = false;
    }

  code...

 }

• We define our three state variables (owner, fortune and deceased) which would be stored in this contract storage. It is necessary to always state your variable type when defining variables in solidity. There are wayyy to many types used in solidity. This types affects how a contract interacts with data variables, functions etc.

• State, Local, Global variable are the three types of variables in solidity

  • Local variables just like in JavaScript are scoped variables, they are often defined in functions and serve out their purpose in the function.
  • State variables are defined outside of functions, they are sort of the global variables in JS
  • Global Variables are special pre-defined variables that can exist globally across contracts. msg.sender is an example of global variables

• Constructors are often used to initialize state variables of a contract and are executed only once when the contract was created. Read more here

Next, we created two modifiers, an array and then mapped addresses to amount of inheritance

  ...code

    // define modifier functions that only owner can call it
    modifier onlyOwner {
        require(msg.sender == owner);
        _; // function body is inserted where the special symbol "_;" add to functions
    }

    // create modifier functions to only allocate funds if deceased
    modifier mustBeDeceased {
        require(deceased == true);
        _; // function body is inserted where the special symbol "_;" add to functions
    }

    // list of family wallets
    address payable [] familyWallets;

    // map through inheritance
    // this enables us to set the inheritance later on
    mapping(address => uint) inheritance;

    code...

• Modifier Functions are sort of conditions that will allow another function to run if true. It works well with require() or if statement.

  • With require you can add a string as a second argument to be outputted when the condition is not met

• You create lists in Solidity by indicating the square bracket ahead of its name like this: [] familyWallets;. In this example, we indicated the types: address and payable.

  • This ensures that the content are Ethereum addresses and allows for payment respectively

• Mapping helps us to pair _key and _value data. This is like objects data type in JavaScript.
  
  

    // set inheritance for each address basically by attributing the amount to address

    function setInheritance(address payable wallet, uint amount) public onlyOwner {
        // add wallet to the family wallets
        familyWallets.push(wallet);
        inheritance[wallet] = amount;
    }

    // pay each family based on their wallet address

    function payout() private mustBeDeceased {
        for (uint256 i = 0; i < familyWallets.length; i++) {
            // familyWallets[i].transfer(inheritance[familyWallets[i]]);
            // or
            (bool success, ) = familyWallets[i].call{value:inheritance[familyWallets[i]]}("");
            require(success, "Transfer failed.");

        }
    }

• The setInhertiance function receives two arguments wallet and amount
  • As you may have noticed, wallet has two types payable and address while amount has uint(unsigned integer) type aka uint32
• We then push each wallet into the list(familyWallet) created earlier and designate an amount to be inherited
• The payout simply loops each wallet in family wallet and transfers the corresponding amount(mapping): <wallet.transfer(amount)>
• Notice the two lines of code commented above //or, it’s an alternative to transfer method. The transfer method is avoided sometimes because of the hard dependency on gas costs. Read up on this here and here
  • (bool success, ) checks to see if transfer was successful else returns "Transfer failed"
• Note that the visibility is set to private. private is one of the four common visibility type [Public, private, internal, external]. It ensures that the function is not called outside the contract

      // oracle switch simulation
    function payWill() public onlyOwner {
        deceased = true;
        payout();
    }

paywill function enables us to call the payout function whose visibility was set to private after I ensured that the onlyOwner and mustBeDeceased conditions are met.

Here is where things start to get interesting, Let's run the contract in our remix IDE

• When you are done writing the contract, you should go ahead to click the compile button. If you get the green tick ✔, you are good to go

You might have noticed that the compile version and pragma solidity <version> are the same. Hence why it is mandatory to indicate it at the beginning of your file

• A. => Take note of the account you will be using, it's where your gas fee and the msg.value global variable for every contract execution comes from.
• B => To make use of Ethereum in the contract, you need to deposit it through the value input. 1 eth = 10¹⁸ wei. Make sure to select eth
• D => After clicking deploy, you will notice a ✔ right above the terminal

• After successful deployment, inspect the IDE, at B you should click the caret-down icon it reveals the two defined public functions in our contract
  • At C, there is the setInheritance function with the expected arguments wallet and amount.
  • Go back to the list of account and select any other account to copy the eth address, click the copy icon beside it. Remember to return to the first account when done
  • When selecting an amount. Put in mind that the default is in wei you will need to add 18 zeros to make it equal to an Ethereum 1eth => 1000000000000000000wei
  • Do this repeatedly to add more address to the familyWallet list. Reminder, make sure to go back to the first account after copying other eth address
  • Click transact to run the function. You will see another ✔.

Note: The limit of Ethereum you can process is the amount added which is 30eth

• After repeating the setInheritance process, you can finally select the payWill button to complete the contract.

Full Code is here

That is all for now on writing a Crypto Will in Solidity. I hope you were at least... whelmed 😁. I will try to document my understanding of a series of useful smart contract here. I will appreciate your input and suggestions so, feel free to follow or reach out to me on my...

If you appreciate the effort and would like to buy me a Crypto Coffee then ==>

eth: 0xeF7dB2944e6BFaF68C1Caf623552A0E9353659Ca