Ethers/6/Contracts/Ambiguous Methods

1.0.1Last update Jan 10, 2025

In v5, in the case of an ambiguous method, it was necessary to look up a method by its canonical normalized signature. In v6 the signature does not need to be normalized and the Typed API provides a cleaner way to access the desired method.

In v5, duplicate definitions also injected warnings into the console, since there was no way to detect them at run-time.

Example

Before

abi = ["function foo(address bar)", "function foo(uint160 bar)"];
contract = new Contract(address, abi, provider);

// In v5 it was necessary to specify the fully-qualified normalized
// signature to access the desired method. For example:
contract["foo(address)"](addr);

// These would fail, since there signature is not normalized:
contract["foo(address )"](addr);
contract["foo(address addr)"](addr);

// This would fail, since the method is ambiguous:
contract.foo(addr);

After

abi = ["function foo(address bar)", "function foo(uint160 bar)"];
contract = new Contract(address, abi, provider);

// Any of these work fine:
contract["foo(address)"](addr);
contract["foo(address )"](addr);
contract["foo(address addr)"](addr);

// This still fails, since there is no way to know which
// method was intended
contract.foo(addr);

// However, the Typed API makes things a bit easier, since it
// allows providing typing information to the Contract:
contract.foo(Typed.address(addr));

Transformation done using this codemod

Before

abi = ["function foo(address bar)", "function foo(uint160 bar)"];
contract = new Contract(address, abi, provider);

contract.foo(addr);

After

abi = ["function foo(address bar)", "function foo(uint160 bar)"];
contract = new Contract(address, abi, provider);

contract.foo(Typed.address(addr));

In v5, duplicate definitions also injected warnings into the console, since there was no way to detect them at run-time.

Example

Before

abi = ["function foo(address bar)", "function foo(uint160 bar)"];
contract = new Contract(address, abi, provider);

// In v5 it was necessary to specify the fully-qualified normalized
// signature to access the desired method. For example:
contract["foo(address)"](addr);

// These would fail, since there signature is not normalized:
contract["foo(address )"](addr);
contract["foo(address addr)"](addr);

// This would fail, since the method is ambiguous:
contract.foo(addr);

After

abi = ["function foo(address bar)", "function foo(uint160 bar)"];
contract = new Contract(address, abi, provider);

// Any of these work fine:
contract["foo(address)"](addr);
contract["foo(address )"](addr);
contract["foo(address addr)"](addr);

// This still fails, since there is no way to know which
// method was intended
contract.foo(addr);

// However, the Typed API makes things a bit easier, since it
// allows providing typing information to the Contract:
contract.foo(Typed.address(addr));

Transformation done using this codemod

Before

abi = ["function foo(address bar)", "function foo(uint160 bar)"];
contract = new Contract(address, abi, provider);

contract.foo(addr);

After

abi = ["function foo(address bar)", "function foo(uint160 bar)"];
contract = new Contract(address, abi, provider);

contract.foo(Typed.address(addr));

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