I started learning blockchain development this week to build up some knowledge before the company’s blockchain project begins. This blog post is a review of what I’ve learned.

What is Truffle

Truffle is a development framework for the Solidity language on Ethereum. It is implemented in JavaScript. Although it’s built with JavaScript, which we’re familiar with, Truffle is mainly a tool for compiling and deploying smart contracts (though it does have other features).

What is Solidity

In blockchain application development, you can roughly understand Solidity as a language for writing backend code. In technical terms, this backend code is called a smart contract.

Main Functions of Truffle

Truffle provides two main functions in blockchain application development:

1. Compile smart contracts
2. Deploy smart contracts

Installation

Just like a regular npm package, install it directly with npm.

# Install truffle globally
$ npm i truffle -g

Initialize Your Project

# Create a new directory
$ mkdir myproject
$ cd myproject

# Initialize
$ truffle init
# After running the command
Downloading...
Unpacking...
Setting up...
Unbox successful. Sweet!

Commands:
# Other truffle operations: compile, deploy, test
  Compile:        truffle compile
  Migrate:        truffle migrate
  Test contracts: truffle test

After completion, you’ll see the following directory structure:

    contract/ - Smart contract Solidity code
    migrations/ - Smart contract deployment scripts
    test/ - Test files
    truffle.js - Truffle configuration file

Below is the auto-generated Solidity code. Most development work will involve writing code like this. After compilation, you can call these methods from frontend JavaScript.

pragma solidity ^0.4.17;

contract Migrations {
  address public owner;
  uint public last_completed_migration;

  modifier restricted() {
    if (msg.sender == owner) _;
  }

  function Migrations() public {
    owner = msg.sender;
  }

  function setCompleted(uint completed) public restricted {
    last_completed_migration = completed;
  }

  function upgrade(address new_address) public restricted {
    Migrations upgraded = Migrations(new_address);
    upgraded.setCompleted(last_completed_migration);
  }
}

Compile Solidity

$ truffle compile

After running the command, a build folder will appear. Inside are our compiled Solidity files, ultimately in JSON format.

build/
  contracts/
    Migrations.json

This JSON file is the smart contract we’ll use frequently. In blockchain frontend development, you import this JSON file into your frontend code and call its methods.

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