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API overview

The Matic.js library follows common api architecture throughout and the APIs are divided into two types:

  1. Read API
  2. Write API

Read API

Read methods do not publish anything on blockchain, so they do not consume any gas. For example:

const erc20 = posClient.erc20('<token address>');
const balance = await erc20.getBalance('<user address>')

Read methods are very simple and return results directly.

Write API

Write methods publish some data on the blockchain, so they consumes gas. Example of write methods are approve, deposit etc.

A write method returns (at least) two data items:

  1. TransactionHash
  2. TransactionReceipt

For example:

// get a contract object
const erc20 = posClient.erc20('<token address>');

// send the transaction
const result = await erc20.approve(10);

// get transaction hash

const txHash = await result.getTransactionHash();

// get receipt

const receipt = await result.getReceipt();

Transaction option

There are some configurable options that are available for all API’s. These configurations can be passed as parameters.

Available configurations are -

  • from?: string | number - The address transactions should be made from.
  • to?: string - The address transactions should be made to.
  • value?: number | string | BN - The value transferred for the transaction in wei.
  • gasLimit?: number | string - The maximum gas provided for a transaction (gas limit).
  • gasPrice?: number | string | BN - The gas price in wei to use for transactions.
  • data?: string - The byte code of the contract.
  • nonce?: number;
  • chainId?: number;
  • chain?: string;
  • hardfork?: string;
  • returnTransaction?: boolean - making it true will return the transaction object which can be used to send transaction manually.

This example configures the gas price:

// get a contract object
const erc20RootToken = posClient.erc20(<root token address>,true);

// approve 100 amount
const approveResult = await erc20Token.approve(100, {
    gasPrice: '4000000000',
});

const txHash = await approveResult.getTransactionHash();

const txReceipt = await approveResult.getReceipt();