In this section we will discuss how to monitor, subscribe, and listen to events using the ethers-rs library. Events are an essential part of smart contract development, as they allow you to track specific occurrences on the blockchain, such as transactions, state changes, or function calls.
## Overview
ethers-rs provides a simple and efficient way to interact with events emitted by smart contracts. You can listen to events, filter them based on certain conditions, and subscribe to event streams for real-time updates. The key components you will work with are:
1. Event: A struct representing an event emitted by a smart contract.
2. EventWatcher: A struct that allows you to monitor and filter events.
3. SubscriptionStream: A stream of events you can subscribe to for real-time updates.
## Getting Started
Before diving into event handling, ensure you have ethers-rs added to your project's dependencies in Cargo.toml:
```toml
[dependencies]
ethers = { version = "2.0.0.", features = ["full"] }
Now, let's import the necessary components from the ethers-rs library:
```
```rust
use ethers::{
prelude::\*,
contract::{Contract, EthEvent},
};
```
### Listening to Events
To listen to events, you'll need to instantiate a Contract object and use the event method to create an Event struct. You'll also need to define a struct that implements the EthEvent trait, representing the specific event you want to listen to.
Consider a simple smart contract that emits an event called ValueChanged:
```solidity
pragma solidity ^0.8.0;
contract SimpleStorage {
uint256 public value;
event ValueChanged(uint256 newValue);
function setValue(uint256 _value) public {
value = _value;
emit ValueChanged(_value);
}
}
```
First, define a struct representing the ValueChanged event:
```rust
#[derive(Debug, Clone, EthEvent)]
pub struct ValueChanged {
pub new_value: U256,
}
```
Then, create an instance of the Contract object and listen for the ValueChanged event:
You can filter events based on specific conditions using the EventWatcher struct. To create an EventWatcher, call the watcher method on your Event object:
```rust
let watcher = event.watcher().from_block(5).to_block(10);
```
In this example, the EventWatcher will only monitor events from block 5 to block 10.
### Subscribing to Events
To receive real-time updates for an event, create a SubscriptionStream by calling the subscribe method on your EventWatcher:
```rust
let mut stream = watcher.subscribe().await?;
```
You can now listen to events as they are emitted by the smart contract: