Common Terminologies

This refers to common & constant words or phrases that would used in the process of using this SDKs.

Common Terminologies in Ether Js

Provider
Signer
Contract

Provider

A Provider (in ethers) is a class which provides an abstraction for a connection to the Ethereum Network. It provides read-only access to the Blockchain and its status.

Signer

A Signer is a class which (usually) in some way directly or indirectly has access to a private key, which can sign messages and transactions to authorize the network to charge your account ether to perform operations.

Example

ethers/provider.js
// A Web3Provider wraps a standard Web3 provider, which is
// what MetaMask injects as window.ethereum into each page
const provider = new ethers.providers.Web3Provider(window.ethereum)

// MetaMask requires requesting permission to connect users accounts
await provider.send("eth_requestAccounts", []);

// The MetaMask plugin also allows signing transactions to
// send ether and pay to change state within the blockchain.
// For this, you need the account signer...
const signer = provider.getSigner()

Learn more on providers here Ether.Js Provider

Contract

A Contract is an abstraction which represents a connection to a specific contract on the Ethereum Network, so that applications can use it like a normal JavaScript object.

ethers/contract.js
// You can also use an ENS name for the contract address
const daiAddress = "dai.tokens.ethers.eth";

// The ERC-20 Contract ABI, which is a common contract interface
// for tokens (this is the Human-Readable ABI format)
const daiAbi = [
  // Some details about the token
  "function name() view returns (string)",
  "function symbol() view returns (string)",

  // Get the account balance
  "function balanceOf(address) view returns (uint)",

  // Send some of your tokens to someone else
  "function transfer(address to, uint amount)",

  // An event triggered whenever anyone transfers to someone else
  "event Transfer(address indexed from, address indexed to, uint amount)"
];

// The Contract object
const daiContract = new ethers.Contract(daiAddress, daiAbi, provider);