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Compile-time

This page lists all the built-in global static functions that are evaluated at the time of building the Tact project and cannot work with non-constant runtime data. These functions are commonly referred to as “compile-time functions” or comptime functions for short.

address

fun address(s: String): Address;

A compile-time function that converts a String containing an address into the Address type and embeds it into the contract.

Usage example:

contract Example {
// Persistent state variables
addr: Address =
address("EQCD39VS5jcptHL8vMjEXrzGaRcCVYto7HUn4bpAOg8xqB2N"); // works at compile-time!
}

cell

fun cell(bocBase64: String): Cell;

A compile-time function that embeds a base64-encoded BoC bocBase64 as a Cell into the contract.

Usage example:

contract Example {
// Persistent state variables
stored: Cell =
// Init package for Wallet V3R1 as a base64-encoded BoC
cell("te6cckEBAQEAYgAAwP8AIN0gggFMl7qXMO1E0NcLH+Ck8mCDCNcYINMf0x/TH/gjE7vyY+1E0NMf0x/T/9FRMrryoVFEuvKiBPkBVBBV+RDyo/gAkyDXSpbTB9QC+wDo0QGkyMsfyx/L/8ntVD++buA="); // works at compile-time!
}

slice

Available since Tact 1.5

fun slice(bocBase64: String): Slice;

A compile-time function that embeds a base64-encoded BoC bocBase64 as a Slice into the contract.

Usage example:

contract Example {
// Persistent state variables
stored: Slice =
// Works at compile-time!
slice("te6cckEBAQEADgAAGEhlbGxvIHdvcmxkIXgtxbw="); // Hello world!
}

rawSlice

Available since Tact 1.5

fun rawSlice(hex: String): Slice;

A compile-time function that converts the hex String, containing hex-encoded and optionally bit-padded contents, into a Slice and embeds it into the contract.

Contents are bit-padded if there is an underscore _ at the very end of the String. Padding removes all trailing zeros and the last 11 bit before them:

// Not bit-padded
rawSlice("4a").loadUint(8); // 74, or 1001010 in binary
// Bit-padded
rawSlice("4a_").loadUint(6); // 18, or 10010 in binary

Note that this function is limited and only allows specifying up to 10231023 bits.

Usage example:

contract Example {
// Persistent state variables
stored: Slice =
rawSlice("000DEADBEEF000"); // CS{Cell{03f...430} bits: 588..644; refs: 1..1}
bitPadded: Slice =
rawSlice("000DEADBEEF000_"); // CS{Cell{03f...e14} bits: 36..79; refs: 0..0}
}

ascii

Available since Tact 1.5

fun ascii(str: String): Int;

A compile-time function that concatenates the numerical values of the characters in the non-empty string str into one value of the Int type. This function works only for strings occupying up to 32 bytes, allowing the representation of up to 32 ASCII codes or up to 8 Unicode code points of 4 bytes each, so the resulting non-negative integer fits into 256 bits.

To understand how the ascii function works, consider the following pseudo-Tact example involving hexadecimal escape sequences:

ascii("NstK") == ascii("\x4e\x73\x74\x4b") == 0x4e73744b == 1316189259

Each ASCII character in the string "NstK" is represented by its hexadecimal escape sequence, which is then converted to the corresponding integer value by concatenating all the bytes.

The ascii builtin assumes the string is encoded in UTF-8. For example, the character’s UTF-8 encoding is 0xE2 0x9A 0xA1, so 0xE2 will be the most significant byte.

The builtin can be used to create human-readable encodings for some actions or operations.

Usage example:

message(42) Action {
action: Int as uint256;
}
contract Example {
receive(msg: Action) {
if (msg.action == ascii("start")) {
// Do something
} else if (msg.action == ascii("stop")) {
// Do something else
}
}
}

crc32

Available since Tact 1.5

fun crc32(str: String): Int;

A compile-time function that computes a checksum using the CRC-32 algorithm and embeds the resulting Int value into the contract.

Usage example:

contract Example {
// Persistent state variables
checksum: Int = crc32("000DEADBEEF000"); // 1821923098
}

ton

fun ton(value: String): Int;

A compile-time function that converts the given Toncoin value from a human-readable format String to the nanoToncoin Int format.

Usage example:

contract Example {
// Persistent state variables
one: Int = ton("1"); // One Toncoin, which is equivalent to 10^9 nanoToncoins
pointOne: Int = ton("0.1"); // 0.1 Toncoin, which is equivalent to 10^8 nanoToncoins
nano: Int = ton("0.000000001"); // 10^-9 Toncoin, which is equivalent to 1 nanoToncoin
// Works at compile-time!
}