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Executing Blocks

We will now start the process to replace the simple block simulation in our main function with a proper block execution pipeline.

Execute Block

We have introduced a new function to our Runtime called fn execute_block.

The steps of this function is exactly the same as our current main function, but using the concrete Block type we defined to extract details like the expected block number and the extrinsics that we want to execute.

Iterating Over a Vector

In order to build our execute_block function, we will need to iterate over all the extrinsics in our block, and dispatch those calls. In rust, the common way to access the elements of a vector is to turn it into an iterator.

There are two functions used for turning a vector into an interator, iter and into_iter, and their difference lies in ownership:

  • iter: This method creates an iterator that borrows each element from the vector, allowing you to read the values without taking ownership. It's useful when you want to iterate over the vector while keeping it intact.

  • into_iter: This method consumes the vector, transferring ownership of each element to the iterator. It's handy when you want to move or transfer ownership of the vector's elements to another part of your code. After using into_iter, the original vector can't be used anymore, as ownership has been transferred.

In our context, we want to use into_iter(), so you will get something that looks like:

for support::Extrinsic { caller, call } in block.extrinsics.into_iter() {
	// do stuff with `caller` and `call`
}

Here you can see we also do a trick to separate out the fields of the Extrinsic in a single line, since ultimately we want to work with caller and call. You can of course break this process up into multiple lines if you want.

Dispatching a Call

Once we have the call and caller, what should we do with them?

This is where the Dispatch trait starts to come into play. You will see in our template, we included the shell of an unimplemented() fn dispatch. We will write this logic in the next step, but we need to already use the dispatch function in our execute_block logic.

Once we have the call and caller, we want to pass them to the dispatch logic, which you see is implemented on the Runtime.

That will look something like:

let _res = self.dispatch(caller, call).map_err(|e| eprintln!("{}", e));

Note that in Rust, if you want to access a function within a trait, like we do here with dispatch, you need to explicitly import that trait into your project.

We left a TODO at the top of main.rs where we ask you to import crate::support::Dispatch, which will allow you access to calling dispatch on Runtime.

Better Error Messages

Since this is a more permanent function of our project, it also makes sense to expand the message being printed when there are extrinsic errors. For example:

eprintln!(
	"Extrinsic Error\n\tBlock Number: {}\n\tExtrinsic Number: {}\n\tError: {}",
	block.header.block_number, i, e
)

This allows you to see the block number, extrinsic number, and the error message whenever there is an extrinsic error. This can be very helpful when you have many blocks being imported each with potentially many extrinsics.

To get the extrinsic number i, use you chain the enumerate() function after the into_iter().

Build Your Execute Block Function

You should now have all the tools and information needed to successfully write your execute_block function.

Follow the TODOs provided by the template, and make sure to include the impl crate::support::Dispatch for Runtime that we provided for you, and that we will implement in the next steps.

Your code should still compile with some "never constructed/used" warnings.

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Executing Blocks

We will now start the process to replace the simple block simulation in our main function with a proper block execution pipeline.

Execute Block

We have introduced a new function to our Runtime called fn execute_block.

The steps of this function is exactly the same as our current main function, but using the concrete Block type we defined to extract details like the expected block number and the extrinsics that we want to execute.

Iterating Over a Vector

In order to build our execute_block function, we will need to iterate over all the extrinsics in our block, and dispatch those calls. In rust, the common way to access the elements of a vector is to turn it into an iterator.

There are two functions used for turning a vector into an interator, iter and into_iter, and their difference lies in ownership:

  • iter: This method creates an iterator that borrows each element from the vector, allowing you to read the values without taking ownership. It's useful when you want to iterate over the vector while keeping it intact.

  • into_iter: This method consumes the vector, transferring ownership of each element to the iterator. It's handy when you want to move or transfer ownership of the vector's elements to another part of your code. After using into_iter, the original vector can't be used anymore, as ownership has been transferred.

In our context, we want to use into_iter(), so you will get something that looks like:

for support::Extrinsic { caller, call } in block.extrinsics.into_iter() {
	// do stuff with `caller` and `call`
}

Here you can see we also do a trick to separate out the fields of the Extrinsic in a single line, since ultimately we want to work with caller and call. You can of course break this process up into multiple lines if you want.

Dispatching a Call

Once we have the call and caller, what should we do with them?

This is where the Dispatch trait starts to come into play. You will see in our template, we included the shell of an unimplemented() fn dispatch. We will write this logic in the next step, but we need to already use the dispatch function in our execute_block logic.

Once we have the call and caller, we want to pass them to the dispatch logic, which you see is implemented on the Runtime.

That will look something like:

let _res = self.dispatch(caller, call).map_err(|e| eprintln!("{}", e));

Note that in Rust, if you want to access a function within a trait, like we do here with dispatch, you need to explicitly import that trait into your project.

We left a TODO at the top of main.rs where we ask you to import crate::support::Dispatch, which will allow you access to calling dispatch on Runtime.

Better Error Messages

Since this is a more permanent function of our project, it also makes sense to expand the message being printed when there are extrinsic errors. For example:

eprintln!(
	"Extrinsic Error\n\tBlock Number: {}\n\tExtrinsic Number: {}\n\tError: {}",
	block.header.block_number, i, e
)

This allows you to see the block number, extrinsic number, and the error message whenever there is an extrinsic error. This can be very helpful when you have many blocks being imported each with potentially many extrinsics.

To get the extrinsic number i, use you chain the enumerate() function after the into_iter().

Build Your Execute Block Function

You should now have all the tools and information needed to successfully write your execute_block function.

Follow the TODOs provided by the template, and make sure to include the impl crate::support::Dispatch for Runtime that we provided for you, and that we will implement in the next steps.

Your code should still compile with some "never constructed/used" warnings.

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