Skip to content

State

Application state

The application state is a snapshot of the current state of the application. The application state is managed by the state machine and is updated based on the user's interactions with the application.

Application state in Stackr

Stackr provides a very simple and intuitive way to manage the application state. It can be a simple value, an object, or a complex data structure. It is completely up to the developer to decide how to structure the application state.

State Definition

The application state is defined as a class that extends the State class provided by Stackr.

state.ts
import { State } from "@stackr/sdk/machine";
 
// provide the type of the state
export class MicroRollupState extends State<StateType> {
  constructor(state: StateType) {
    super(state);
  }
 
  getRootHash() {
    // implement the logic to get the root hash
  }
}

1. State Type

You need to provide the type of the state when defining the state class. The type of the state is defined by the developer and can be any valid TypeScript type.

2. Root Hash

The other thing to note is that the state class should implement the getRootHash method. There are no restriction on how this method should be implemented. It is up to the developer to decide how to calculate the root hash of the state. The only requirement is that the method should create a single hash/commitment that represents the entire state.

Wrapped and Unwrapped State

Sometimes it maybe required that the Raw representation of the state is too slim to be able to operate on it. In such cases, the raw state can be wrapped into an object that can create a richer representation of the state. The optional transformer method can be used to define how the state should be wrapped and unwrapped.

state.ts
import { State } from "@stackr/sdk/machine";
 
export class CounterState extends State<number> {
  constructor(state: number) {
    super(state);
  }
 
  transformer(): {
    wrap: () => number; 
    unwrap: (wrappedState: number) => number; 
  } {

    return { 
      wrap: () => this.state, 
      unwrap: (wrappedState: number) => wrappedState, 
    }; 
  } 
 
  getRootHash() {
    return solidityPackedKeccak256(["uint256"], [this.state]);
  }
}

Example 1 - Merkle Tree

An example of this could be an array of objects that represent an account. The raw state could be an array of account ids, but the wrapped state could be a merkle tree of the accounts like this :

import { State } from "@stackr/sdk/machine";
import { BytesLike, ZeroHash, solidityPackedKeccak256 } from "ethers";
import { MerkleTree } from "merkletreejs"; 
 
// Raw State
export type Leaves = {
  address: string;
  balance: number;
  nonce: number;
  allowances: {
    address: string;
    amount: number;
  }[];
}[];
 
// Wrapped State
export class MerkleTreeWrapper { 
  public merkleTree: MerkleTree; 
  public leaves: Leaves; 
 
  constructor(leaves: Leaves) { 
    this.merkleTree = this.createTree(leaves); 
    this.leaves = leaves; 
  } 
 
  createTree(leaves: Leaves) { 
    const hashedLeaves = leaves.map((leaf) => { 
      return solidityPackedKeccak256( 
        ["address", "uint256", "uint256"], 
        [leaf.address, leaf.balance, leaf.nonce] 
      ); 
    }); 
    return new MerkleTree(hashedLeaves); 
  } 
} 
 
export class ERC20 extends State<Leaves, MerkleTreeWrapper> {
  constructor(state: Leaves) {
    super(state);
  }
 
  transformer() { 
    return {
      wrap: () => {
        return new MerkleTreeWrapper(this.state); 
      },
      unwrap: (wrappedState: MerkleTreeWrapper) => {
        return wrappedState.leaves;
      },
    };
  }
 
  getRootHash(): BytesLike {
    if (this.state.length === 0) {
      return ZeroHash;
    }
    return this.transformer().wrap().merkleTree.getRoot();
  }
}

Example 2 - Chess Game

Another example of this could be a game of chess. The raw state could be FEN notation of the board, but the wrapped state could be an object that wraps the FEN and gives a richer representation of the board.

import { State } from "@stackr/sdk/machine";
import { Chess } from "chess.js"; 
import { BytesLike, hexlify, solidityPackedKeccak256 } from "ethers";
 
// raw state
// "rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1"
 
export class ChessState extends State<string, Chess> {
  constructor(state: string) {
    super(state);
  }
 
  transformer() { 
    return {
      wrap: () => {
        const chessBoard = new Chess(this.state);
        return chessBoard;
      },
      unwrap: (wrappedState: Chess) => {
        return wrappedState.fen();
      },
    };
  }
 
  getRootHash(): BytesLike {
    return hexlify(solidityPackedKeccak256(["string"], [this.state]));
  }
}