Interacting with other programs on the Solana chain
As a developer building a program on the Solana chain, you are likely familiar with the Interface Definition Language (IDL) for your specific use case. However, interacting with another program requires more than just knowledge of IDL. In this article, we will explore how to communicate with other programs and interact with their functionality using the Solana SDK.
Why do I need more than IDL?
While IDL provides a high-level abstraction of the program’s functionality, it does not cover low-level details such as contract interactions, event broadcasting, or smart contract invocations. To build robust interactions between programs, you must use the Solana API and libraries.
In this article, we will focus on two main topics:
- Interacting with other programs using contracts: We will discuss how to call functions from another program’s contract using the
callfunction.
- Interacting with the Solana blockchain using the SDK: We will look at how to access the Solana blockchain, create accounts, and perform transactions.
Invoking functions from another program
To interact with another program, you need to:
- Create a new account on the target contract’s chain
: You can use the
create_accountfunction provided by the target contract to create a new account.
- Call a function from the other program’s contract using
call
: Use the
callfunction to call the specified function in the other program’s contract.
Here is an example:
use solana_program::{account_info::AccountInfo, entry_point};
use solana_sdk::program::contract::ProgramId;
use std::sync::Arc;
// IDL for another program (e.g. data storage contract)
struct AnotherProgramContract {
// Other required fields...
}
impl solana_program::idl::OnIDL for AnotherProgramContract {
fn call(&self, account: &AccountInfo) -> Result {
let target_contract = Arc::new(self.clone());
let program_id = ProgramId::from_slice("other_program");
// Call a function from the other program's contract
let result = target_contract
.contract()
.call(&[&program_id], &[account])?;
OK (result)
}
}
// Create a new account in the target contract chain
fn create_account(target_program_id: &ProgramId) -> Result {
// Create a new program context
let context = solana_sdk::program::context::new()?;
// Call create_account to create a new account
let (result, _) = context.program.create_account(
&[
AccountInfo::new_id(&[]),
ProgramId::from_slice(target_program_id).clone(),
],
&[&target_program_id],
)?;
OK (result)
}
Interacting with the Solana Blockchain
To access the Solana blockchain, create accounts, and make transactions, you need to:
- Create a new account on the Solana mainnet or devnet: Use the
create_accountfunction provided by the target program contract.
- Make transactions using the SDK: You can use the
create_transactionfunction provided by the target program contract to make transactions.
Here is an example:
“` rust
use solana_program::idl::idl;
use std::sync::Arc;
// IDL for a simple transaction contract
struct TransactionContract {
// Other required fields…
}
impl solana_program::idl::OnIDL for TransactionContract {
fn call(&self, account: &AccountInfo) -> Result
let target_contract = Arc::new(self.clone());
let program_id = ProgramId::from_slice(“transaction”);
// Execute a transaction
let (result, _) = target_contract
.contract()
.call(&[&program_id], &[account])?
