Feature request: generate JSON from a Solidity struct

[zlatinov]

This would make your library cover both parsing and generation and will make it a full JSON solution for Solidity.

The generation of JSON will help with the communication between smart contracts and the DAPPs. For example:

struct Book {
	uint id;
	string name;
}

struct Artist {
	uint id;
	string name;
	Book[] books;
}

Artist[] artists;

It will make reading variables like "artists" a lot easier from the JavaScript front-end, if you can read it fully as JSON instead of looping separate calls and having to define special getters in Solidity.

[chrisdotn]

While I really like the idea it is unfortunately impractical right now: Solidity does not allow for reflection, i.e. it is impossible to retrieve a variable's name or type during runtime. This makes it impossible to generate useful JSON strings.

As such, unless I find a really clever way to provide all that meta data, this feature request is nothing that I can do at the moment. I will leave it open for the meantime, because the idea is obviously useful. However, I'll label it with «maybe» to indicate that it's not on my list right now.

[mindcarver]

You can refer to this protobuf implements in soldity: , don't know if it helps you, it can use the protobuf encoding and decoding of the Soldity struct type.

[xinbenlv]

Thanks @mindcarver . Hi from 2023. here is the perm link of your protobuf implements in solidity: https://github.com/hyperledger-labs/yui-ibc-solidity/blob/05047b73f12020ed671b8ca9d9e3d188d5befbd5/contracts/core/types/App.sol