Creating a query

We have already created a simple contract reacting to an empty instantiate message. Unfortunately, it is not very useful. Let's make it a bit interactive.

First, we need to add the serde (opens in a new tab) crate to our dependencies. It would help us with the serialization and deserialization of query messages.

[package]
name = "contract"
version = "0.1.0"
edition = "2021"
 
[lib]
crate-type = ["cdylib"]
 
[dependencies]
cosmwasm-std = { version = "2.1.4", features = ["staking"] }
serde = { version = "1.0.214", default-features = false, features = ["derive"] }

Now go add a new query entry point:

use cosmwasm_std::{
    entry_point, to_json_binary, Binary, Deps, DepsMut, Empty, Env, MessageInfo,
    Response, StdResult,
};
use serde::{Deserialize, Serialize};
 
#[derive(Serialize, Deserialize)]
struct QueryResp {
    message: String,
}
 
#[entry_point]
pub fn instantiate(
    _deps: DepsMut,
    _env: Env,
    _info: MessageInfo,
    _msg: Empty,
) -> StdResult<Response> {
    Ok(Response::new())
}
 
#[entry_point]
pub fn query(_deps: Deps, _env: Env, _msg: Empty) -> StdResult<Binary> {
    let resp = QueryResp {
        message: "Hello World".to_owned(),
    };
 
    to_json_binary(&resp)
}

We first need a structure we will return from our query. We always want to return something which is serializable. We are just deriving the Serialize (opens in a new tab) and Deserialize (opens in a new tab) traits from serde crate.

Then we need to implement our entry point. It is very similar to the instantiate one. The first significant difference is the type of deps argument. For instantiate, it was a DepMut, but here we went with a Deps (opens in a new tab) object. That is because the query can never alter the smart contract's internal state. It can only read the state. It comes with some consequences - for example, it is impossible to implement caching for future queries (as it would require some data cache to write to).

The other difference is the lack of the info argument. The reason here is that the entry point which performs actions (like instantiation or execution) can differ how an action is performed based on the message metadata - for example, they can limit who can perform an action (and do so by checking the message sender). It is not the case for queries. Queries are supposed just purely to return some transformed contract state. It can be calculated based on some chain metadata (so the state can "automatically" change after some time), but not on message info.

Note that our entry point still has the same Empty type for its msg argument - it means that the query message we would send to the contract is still an empty JSON: {}

The last thing that changed is the return type. Instead of returning the Response type for the success case, we return an arbitrary serializable object. This is because queries do not use a typical actor model message flow - they cannot trigger any actions nor communicate with other contracts in ways different than querying them (which is handled by the deps argument). The query always returns plain data, which should be presented directly to the querier.

Now take a look at the implementation. Nothing complicated happens there - we create an object we want to return and encode it to the Binary (opens in a new tab) type using the to_json_binary (opens in a new tab) function.

Improving the message

We have a query entry point, but there is a problem with the query message. It is always an empty JSON. It is terrible - if we would like to add another query in the future, it would be difficult to have any reasonable distinction between query variants.

In practice, we address this by using a non-empty query message type. Let`s improve our contract:

use cosmwasm_std::{
    entry_point, to_json_binary, Binary, Deps, DepsMut, Empty, Env, MessageInfo, Response, StdResult,
};
use serde::{Deserialize, Serialize};
 
#[derive(Serialize, Deserialize)]
struct QueryResp {
    message: String,
}
 
#[derive(Serialize, Deserialize)]
pub enum QueryMsg {
    Greet {},
}
 
#[entry_point]
pub fn instantiate(
    _deps: DepsMut,
    _env: Env,
    _info: MessageInfo,
    _msg: Empty,
) -> StdResult<Response> {
    Ok(Response::new())
}
 
#[entry_point]
pub fn query(_deps: Deps, _env: Env, msg: QueryMsg) -> StdResult<Binary> {
    use QueryMsg::*;
 
    match msg {
        Greet {} => {
            let resp = QueryResp {
                message: "Hello World".to_owned(),
            };
 
            to_json_binary(&resp)
        }
    }
}

Now we introduced a proper message type for the query message. It is an enum (opens in a new tab), and by default, it would serialize to a JSON with a single field - the name of the field will be an enum variant (in our case - always "greet" - at least for now), and the value of this field would be an object assigned to this enum variant.

Note that our enum has no type assigned to the only Greet variant. Typically in Rust, we create such variants without additional {} after the variant name. Here the curly braces have a purpose - without them, the variant would serialize to just a string type - so instead of { "greet": {} }, the JSON representation of this variant would be "greet". This behavior brings inconsistency in the message schema. It is, generally, a good habit to always add the {} to serde serializable empty enum variants - for better JSON representation.

But now, we can still improve the code further. Right now, the query function has two responsibilities. The first is obvious - handling the query itself. It was the first assumption, and it is still there. But there is a new thing happening there - the query message dispatching. It may not be obvious, as there is a single variant, but the query function is an excellent way to become a massive unreadable match statement. To make the code more SOLID (opens in a new tab), we will refactor it and take out handling the greet message to a separate function.

use cosmwasm_std::{
    entry_point, to_json_binary, Binary, Deps, DepsMut, Empty, Env, MessageInfo, Response, StdResult,
};
use serde::{Deserialize, Serialize};
 
#[derive(Serialize, Deserialize)]
pub struct GreetResp {
    message: String,
}
 
#[derive(Serialize, Deserialize)]
pub enum QueryMsg {
    Greet {},
}
 
#[entry_point]
pub fn instantiate(
    _deps: DepsMut,
    _env: Env,
    _info: MessageInfo,
    _msg: Empty,
) -> StdResult<Response> {
    Ok(Response::new())
}
 
#[entry_point]
pub fn query(_deps: Deps, _env: Env, msg: QueryMsg) -> StdResult<Binary> {
    use QueryMsg::*;
 
    match msg {
        Greet {} => to_json_binary(&query::greet()?),
    }
}
 
mod query {
    use super::*;
 
    pub fn greet() -> StdResult<GreetResp> {
        let resp = GreetResp {
            message: "Hello World".to_owned(),
        };
 
        Ok(resp)
    }
}

Now it looks much better. Note there are a couple of additional improvements. I renamed the query-response type GreetResp as I may have different responses for different queries. I want the name to relate only to the variant, not the whole message.

Next is enclosing my new function in the module query. It makes it easier to avoid name collisions - I can have the same variant for queries and execution messages in the future, and their handlers would lie in separate namespaces.

A questionable decision may be returning StdResult instead of GreetResp from greet function, as it would never return an error. It is a matter of style, but I prefer consistency over the message handler, and the majority of them would have failure cases - e.g. when reading the state.

Also, you might pass deps and env arguments to all your query handlers for consistency. I'm not too fond of this, as it introduces unnecessary boilerplate which doesn't read well, but I also agree with the consistency argument - I leave it to your judgment.

Structuring the contract

You can see that our contract is becoming a bit bigger now. About 50 lines are maybe not so much, but there are many different entities in a single file, and I think we can do better. I can already distinguish three different types of entities in the code: entry points, messages, and handlers. In most contracts, we would divide them across three files. Start with extracting all the messages to src/msg.rs:

use serde::{Deserialize, Serialize};
 
#[derive(Serialize, Deserialize)]
pub struct GreetResp {
    pub message: String,
}
 
#[derive(Serialize, Deserialize)]
pub enum QueryMsg {
    Greet {},
}

You probably noticed that I made my GreetResp fields public. It is because they have to be now accessed from a different module. Now move forward to the src/contract.rs file:

use crate::msg::{GreetResp, QueryMsg};
use cosmwasm_std::{
    to_json_binary, Binary, Deps, DepsMut, Empty, Env, MessageInfo, Response, StdResult,
};
 
pub fn instantiate(
    _deps: DepsMut,
    _env: Env,
    _info: MessageInfo,
    _msg: Empty,
) -> StdResult<Response> {
    Ok(Response::new())
}
 
pub fn query(_deps: Deps, _env: Env, msg: QueryMsg) -> StdResult<Binary> {
    use QueryMsg::*;
 
    match msg {
        Greet {} => to_json_binary(&query::greet()?),
    }
}
 
mod query {
    use super::*;
 
    pub fn greet() -> StdResult<GreetResp> {
        let resp = GreetResp {
            message: "Hello World".to_owned(),
        };
 
        Ok(resp)
    }
}

I moved most of the logic here, so my src/lib.rs is just a very thin library entry with nothing else but module definitions and entry points definition. I removed the #[entry_point] attribute from my query function in src/contract.rs. I will have a function with this attribute. Still, I wanted to split functions' responsibility further - not the contract::query function is the top-level query handler responsible for dispatching the query message. The query function on crate-level is only an entry point. It is a subtle distinction, but it will make sense in the future when we would like not to generate the entry points but to keep the dispatching functions. I introduced the split now to show you the typical contract structure.

Now the last part, the src/lib.rs file:

use cosmwasm_std::{
    entry_point, Binary, Deps, DepsMut, Empty, Env, MessageInfo, Response, StdResult,
};
 
mod contract;
mod msg;
 
#[entry_point]
pub fn instantiate(deps: DepsMut, env: Env, info: MessageInfo, msg: Empty)
  -> StdResult<Response>
{
    contract::instantiate(deps, env, info, msg)
}
 
#[entry_point]
pub fn query(deps: Deps, env: Env, msg: msg::QueryMsg)
  -> StdResult<Binary>
{
    contract::query(deps, env, msg)
}

Straightforward top-level module. Definition of submodules and entry points, nothing more.

Now, since our contract is ready to do something, let's go and test it.