ADR 012: State Accessors

Changelog

• 2019 Sep 04: Initial draft

Context

Cosmos SDK modules currently use the KVStore interface and Codec to access their respective state. While this provides a large degree of freedom to module developers, it is hard to modularize and the UX is mediocre.

First, each time a module tries to access the state, it has to marshal the value and set or get the value and finally unmarshal. Usually this is done by declaring Keeper.GetXXX and Keeper.SetXXX functions, which are repetitive and hard to maintain.

Second, this makes it harder to align with the object capability theorem: the right to access the state is defined as a StoreKey, which gives full access on the entire Merkle tree, so a module cannot send the access right to a specific key-value pair (or a set of key-value pairs) to another module safely.

Finally, because the getter/setter functions are defined as methods of a module's Keeper, the reviewers have to consider the whole Merkle tree space when they reviewing a function accessing any part of the state. There is no static way to know which part of the state that the function is accessing (and which is not).

Decision

We will define a type named Value:

type Value struct {
  m   Mapping
  key []byte
}

The Value works as a reference for a key-value pair in the state, where Value.m defines the key-value space it will access and Value.key defines the exact key for the reference.

We will define a type named Mapping:

type Mapping struct {
  storeKey sdk.StoreKey
  cdc      *codec.LegacyAmino
  prefix   []byte
}

The Mapping works as a reference for a key-value space in the state, where Mapping.storeKey defines the IAVL (sub-)tree and Mapping.prefix defines the optional subspace prefix.

We will define the following core methods for the Value type:

// Get and unmarshal stored data, noop if not exists, panic if cannot unmarshal
func (Value) Get(ctx Context, ptr interface{}) {}

// Get and unmarshal stored data, return error if not exists or cannot unmarshal
func (Value) GetSafe(ctx Context, ptr interface{}) {}

// Get stored data as raw byte slice
func (Value) GetRaw(ctx Context) []byte {}

// Marshal and set a raw value
func (Value) Set(ctx Context, o interface{}) {}

// Check if a raw value exists
func (Value) Exists(ctx Context) bool {}

// Delete a raw value value
func (Value) Delete(ctx Context) {}

We will define the following core methods for the Mapping type:

// Constructs key-value pair reference corresponding to the key argument in the Mapping space
func (Mapping) Value(key []byte) Value {}

// Get and unmarshal stored data, noop if not exists, panic if cannot unmarshal
func (Mapping) Get(ctx Context, key []byte, ptr interface{}) {}

// Get and unmarshal stored data, return error if not exists or cannot unmarshal
func (Mapping) GetSafe(ctx Context, key []byte, ptr interface{})

// Get stored data as raw byte slice
func (Mapping) GetRaw(ctx Context, key []byte) []byte {}

// Marshal and set a raw value
func (Mapping) Set(ctx Context, key []byte, o interface{}) {}

// Check if a raw value exists
func (Mapping) Has(ctx Context, key []byte) bool {}

// Delete a raw value value
func (Mapping) Delete(ctx Context, key []byte) {}

Each method of the Mapping type that is passed the arguments ctx, key, and args... will proxy the call to Mapping.Value(key) with arguments ctx and args....

In addition, we will define and provide a common set of types derived from the Value type:

type Boolean struct { Value }
type Enum struct { Value }
type Integer struct { Value; enc IntEncoding }
type String struct { Value }
// ...

Where the encoding schemes can be different, o arguments in core methods are typed, and ptr arguments in core methods are replaced by explicit return types.

Finally, we will define a family of types derived from the Mapping type:

type Indexer struct {
  m   Mapping
  enc IntEncoding
}

Where the key argument in core method is typed.

Some of the properties of the accessor types are:

• State access happens only when a function which takes a Context as an argument is invoked
• Accessor type structs give rights to access the state only that the struct is referring, no other
• Marshalling/Unmarshalling happens implicitly within the core methods

Status

Proposed

Consequences

Positive

• Serialization will be done automatically
• Shorter code size, less boilerplate, better UX
• References to the state can be transferred safely
• Explicit scope of accessing

Negative

• Serialization format will be hidden
• Different architecture from the current, but the use of accessor types can be opt-in
• Type-specific types (e.g. Boolean and Integer) have to be defined manually

Neutral

References

• #4554