How to Send Additional Text Payload to Contract?

Question

I need to send a string of a digit and a letter like "2F" to a contract deployed on a running contracts node. This payload is to be processed in the contract then.

How can I include additional data to the transaction?
(I'm using Contracts UI node to send transactions)

Answer 1

The ink! docs state:

In general, you should think twice if you really need String. Smart contracts usually don't use strings; those are typically used for user interactions and should live in your UI and not on the chain.

You could use the @polkadot/api-contract and do the following:

const wsContractsProvider = new WsProvider('ws://localhost:9944');
const contractsApi = await ApiPromise.create({ provider: wsContractsProvider });
const address = "5EYtidretW1FmUjA6hisdq1AZ2GfsDUanDtSEuLghGzvdWau";
const contract = new ContractPromise(contractsApi, abi, address);

const value = 0; // only useful on isPayable messages
const gasLimit = -1;
const keyring = new Keyring({ type: 'sr25519' });
const alicePair = keyring.createFromUri("//Alice");

const value1 = 54;
const value2 = 88;

await contract.query.processSomething(alicePair.address, { value, gasLimit }, value1, value2);

In this case processSomething is an ink! message...:

/// Do some processing...
#[ink(message)]
pub fn process_something(&self, first: u32, second: u32) {
    ink_env::debug_println!("Do some processing... {}, {}", first, second);
}