solidity/docs/internals/layout_in_storage.rst

.. index:: storage, state variable, mapping

************************************
Layout of State Variables in Storage
************************************

.. _storage-inplace-encoding:

State variables of contracts are stored in storage in a compact way such
that multiple values sometimes use the same storage slot.
Except for dynamically-sized arrays and mappings (see below), data is stored
contiguously item after item starting with the first state variable,
which is stored in slot ``0``. For each variable,
a size in bytes is determined according to its type.
Multiple, contiguous items that need less than 32 bytes are packed into a single
storage slot if possible, according to the following rules:

- The first item in a storage slot is stored lower-order aligned.
- Value types use only as many bytes as are necessary to store them.
- If a value type does not fit the remaining part of a storage slot, it is stored in the next storage slot.
- Structs and array data always start a new slot and their items are packed tightly according to these rules.
- Items following struct or array data always start a new storage slot.

For contracts that use inheritance, the ordering of state variables is determined by the
C3-linearized order of contracts starting with the most base-ward contract. If allowed
by the above rules, state variables from different contracts do share the same storage slot.

The elements of structs and arrays are stored after each other, just as if they were given
as individual values.

.. warning::
    When using elements that are smaller than 32 bytes, your contract's gas usage may be higher.
    This is because the EVM operates on 32 bytes at a time. Therefore, if the element is smaller
    than that, the EVM must use more operations in order to reduce the size of the element from 32
    bytes to the desired size.

    It might be beneficial to use reduced-size types if you are dealing with storage values
    because the compiler will pack multiple elements into one storage slot, and thus, combine
    multiple reads or writes into a single operation.
    If you are not reading or writing all the values in a slot at the same time, this can
    have the opposite effect, though: When one value is written to a multi-value storage
    slot, the storage slot has to be read first and then
    combined with the new value such that other data in the same slot is not destroyed.

    When dealing with function arguments or memory
    values, there is no inherent benefit because the compiler does not pack these values.

    Finally, in order to allow the EVM to optimize for this, ensure that you try to order your
    storage variables and ``struct`` members such that they can be packed tightly. For example,
    declaring your storage variables in the order of ``uint128, uint128, uint256`` instead of
    ``uint128, uint256, uint128``, as the former will only take up two slots of storage whereas the
    latter will take up three.

.. note::
     The layout of state variables in storage is considered to be part of the external interface
     of Solidity due to the fact that storage pointers can be passed to libraries. This means that
     any change to the rules outlined in this section is considered a breaking change
     of the language and due to its critical nature should be considered very carefully before
     being executed.


Mappings and Dynamic Arrays
===========================

.. _storage-hashed-encoding:

Due to their unpredictable size, mappings and dynamically-sized array types cannot be stored
"in between" the state variables preceding and following them.
Instead, they are considered to occupy only 32 bytes with regards to the
:ref:`rules above <storage-inplace-encoding>` and the elements they contain are stored starting at a different
storage slot that is computed using a Keccak-256 hash.

Assume the storage location of the mapping or array ends up being a slot ``p``
after applying :ref:`the storage layout rules <storage-inplace-encoding>`.
For dynamic arrays,
this slot stores the number of elements in the array (byte arrays and
strings are an exception, see :ref:`below <bytes-and-string>`).
For mappings, the slot stays empty, but it is still needed to ensure that even if there are
two mappings next to each other, their content ends up at different storage locations.

Array data is located starting at ``keccak256(p)`` and it is laid out in the same way as
statically-sized array data would: One element after the other, potentially sharing
storage slots if the elements are not longer than 16 bytes. Dynamic arrays of dynamic arrays apply this
rule recursively. The location of element ``x[i][j]``, where the type of ``x`` is ``uint24[][]``, is
computed as follows (again, assuming ``x`` itself is stored at slot ``p``):
The slot is ``keccak256(keccak256(p) + i) + floor(j / floor(256 / 24))`` and
the element can be obtained from the slot data ``v`` using ``(v >> ((j % floor(256 / 24)) * 24)) & type(uint24).max``.

The value corresponding to a mapping key ``k`` is located at ``keccak256(h(k) . p)``
where ``.`` is concatenation and ``h`` is a function that is applied to the key depending on its type:

- for value types, ``h`` pads the value to 32 bytes in the same way as when storing the value in memory.
- for strings and byte arrays, ``h`` computes the ``keccak256`` hash of the unpadded data.

If the mapping value is a
non-value type, the computed slot marks the start of the data. If the value is of struct type,
for example, you have to add an offset corresponding to the struct member to reach the member.

As an example, consider the following contract:

.. code-block:: solidity

    // SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-3.0
    pragma solidity >=0.4.0 <0.9.0;


    contract C {
        struct S { uint16 a; uint16 b; uint256 c; }
        uint x;
        mapping(uint => mapping(uint => S)) data;
    }

Let us compute the storage location of ``data[4][9].c``.
The position of the mapping itself is ``1`` (the variable ``x`` with 32 bytes precedes it).
This means ``data[4]`` is stored at ``keccak256(uint256(4) . uint256(1))``. The type of ``data[4]`` is
again a mapping and the data for ``data[4][9]`` starts at slot
``keccak256(uint256(9) . keccak256(uint256(4) . uint256(1)))``.
The slot offset of the member ``c`` inside the struct ``S`` is ``1`` because ``a`` and ``b`` are packed
in a single slot. This means the slot for
``data[4][9].c`` is ``keccak256(uint256(9) . keccak256(uint256(4) . uint256(1))) + 1``.
The type of the value is ``uint256``, so it uses a single slot.


.. _bytes-and-string:

``bytes`` and ``string``
------------------------

``bytes`` and ``string`` are encoded identically.
In general, the encoding is similar to ``byte1[]``, in the sense that there is a slot for the array itself and
a data area that is computed using a ``keccak256`` hash of that slot's position.
However, for short values (shorter than 32 bytes) the array elements are stored together with the length in the same slot.

In particular: if the data is at most ``31`` bytes long, the elements are stored
in the higher-order bytes (left aligned) and the lowest-order byte stores the value ``length * 2``.
For byte arrays that store data which is ``32`` or more bytes long, the main slot ``p`` stores ``length * 2 + 1`` and the data is
stored as usual in ``keccak256(p)``. This means that you can distinguish a short array from a long array
by checking if the lowest bit is set: short (not set) and long (set).

.. note::
  Handling invalidly encoded slots is currently not supported but may be added in the future.
  If you are compiling via the experimental IR-based compiler pipeline, reading an invalidly encoded
  slot results in a ``Panic(0x22)`` error.

JSON Output
===========

.. _storage-layout-top-level:

The storage layout of a contract can be requested via
the :ref:`standard JSON interface <compiler-api>`.  The output is a JSON object containing two keys,
``storage`` and ``types``.  The ``storage`` object is an array where each
element has the following form:


.. code::


    {
        "astId": 2,
        "contract": "fileA:A",
        "label": "x",
        "offset": 0,
        "slot": "0",
        "type": "t_uint256"
    }

The example above is the storage layout of ``contract A { uint x; }`` from source unit ``fileA``
and

- ``astId`` is the id of the AST node of the state variable's declaration
- ``contract`` is the name of the contract including its path as prefix
- ``label`` is the name of the state variable
- ``offset`` is the offset in bytes within the storage slot according to the encoding
- ``slot`` is the storage slot where the state variable resides or starts. This
  number may be very large and therefore its JSON value is represented as a
  string.
- ``type`` is an identifier used as key to the variable's type information (described in the following)

The given ``type``, in this case ``t_uint256`` represents an element in
``types``, which has the form:


.. code::

    {
        "encoding": "inplace",
        "label": "uint256",
        "numberOfBytes": "32",
    }

where

- ``encoding`` how the data is encoded in storage, where the possible values are:

  - ``inplace``: data is laid out contiguously in storage (see :ref:`above <storage-inplace-encoding>`).
  - ``mapping``: Keccak-256 hash-based method (see :ref:`above <storage-hashed-encoding>`).
  - ``dynamic_array``: Keccak-256 hash-based method (see :ref:`above <storage-hashed-encoding>`).
  - ``bytes``: single slot or Keccak-256 hash-based depending on the data size (see :ref:`above <bytes-and-string>`).

- ``label`` is the canonical type name.
- ``numberOfBytes`` is the number of used bytes (as a decimal string).
  Note that if ``numberOfBytes > 32`` this means that more than one slot is used.

Some types have extra information besides the four above. Mappings contain
its ``key`` and ``value`` types (again referencing an entry in this mapping
of types), arrays have its ``base`` type, and structs list their ``members`` in
the same format as the top-level ``storage`` (see :ref:`above
<storage-layout-top-level>`).

.. note ::
  The JSON output format of a contract's storage layout is still considered experimental
  and is subject to change in non-breaking releases of Solidity.

The following example shows a contract and its storage layout, containing
value and reference types, types that are encoded packed, and nested types.


.. code-block:: solidity

    // SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-3.0
    pragma solidity >=0.4.0 <0.9.0;
    contract A {
        struct S {
            uint128 a;
            uint128 b;
            uint[2] staticArray;
            uint[] dynArray;
        }

        uint x;
        uint y;
        S s;
        address addr;
        mapping (uint => mapping (address => bool)) map;
        uint[] array;
        string s1;
        bytes b1;
    }

.. code:: json

    {
      "storage": [
        {
          "astId": 15,
          "contract": "fileA:A",
          "label": "x",
          "offset": 0,
          "slot": "0",
          "type": "t_uint256"
        },
        {
          "astId": 17,
          "contract": "fileA:A",
          "label": "y",
          "offset": 0,
          "slot": "1",
          "type": "t_uint256"
        },
        {
          "astId": 20,
          "contract": "fileA:A",
          "label": "s",
          "offset": 0,
          "slot": "2",
          "type": "t_struct(S)13_storage"
        },
        {
          "astId": 22,
          "contract": "fileA:A",
          "label": "addr",
          "offset": 0,
          "slot": "6",
          "type": "t_address"
        },
        {
          "astId": 28,
          "contract": "fileA:A",
          "label": "map",
          "offset": 0,
          "slot": "7",
          "type": "t_mapping(t_uint256,t_mapping(t_address,t_bool))"
        },
        {
          "astId": 31,
          "contract": "fileA:A",
          "label": "array",
          "offset": 0,
          "slot": "8",
          "type": "t_array(t_uint256)dyn_storage"
        },
        {
          "astId": 33,
          "contract": "fileA:A",
          "label": "s1",
          "offset": 0,
          "slot": "9",
          "type": "t_string_storage"
        },
        {
          "astId": 35,
          "contract": "fileA:A",
          "label": "b1",
          "offset": 0,
          "slot": "10",
          "type": "t_bytes_storage"
        }
      ],
      "types": {
        "t_address": {
          "encoding": "inplace",
          "label": "address",
          "numberOfBytes": "20"
        },
        "t_array(t_uint256)2_storage": {
          "base": "t_uint256",
          "encoding": "inplace",
          "label": "uint256[2]",
          "numberOfBytes": "64"
        },
        "t_array(t_uint256)dyn_storage": {
          "base": "t_uint256",
          "encoding": "dynamic_array",
          "label": "uint256[]",
          "numberOfBytes": "32"
        },
        "t_bool": {
          "encoding": "inplace",
          "label": "bool",
          "numberOfBytes": "1"
        },
        "t_bytes_storage": {
          "encoding": "bytes",
          "label": "bytes",
          "numberOfBytes": "32"
        },
        "t_mapping(t_address,t_bool)": {
          "encoding": "mapping",
          "key": "t_address",
          "label": "mapping(address => bool)",
          "numberOfBytes": "32",
          "value": "t_bool"
        },
        "t_mapping(t_uint256,t_mapping(t_address,t_bool))": {
          "encoding": "mapping",
          "key": "t_uint256",
          "label": "mapping(uint256 => mapping(address => bool))",
          "numberOfBytes": "32",
          "value": "t_mapping(t_address,t_bool)"
        },
        "t_string_storage": {
          "encoding": "bytes",
          "label": "string",
          "numberOfBytes": "32"
        },
        "t_struct(S)13_storage": {
          "encoding": "inplace",
          "label": "struct A.S",
          "members": [
            {
              "astId": 3,
              "contract": "fileA:A",
              "label": "a",
              "offset": 0,
              "slot": "0",
              "type": "t_uint128"
            },
            {
              "astId": 5,
              "contract": "fileA:A",
              "label": "b",
              "offset": 16,
              "slot": "0",
              "type": "t_uint128"
            },
            {
              "astId": 9,
              "contract": "fileA:A",
              "label": "staticArray",
              "offset": 0,
              "slot": "1",
              "type": "t_array(t_uint256)2_storage"
            },
            {
              "astId": 12,
              "contract": "fileA:A",
              "label": "dynArray",
              "offset": 0,
              "slot": "3",
              "type": "t_array(t_uint256)dyn_storage"
            }
          ],
          "numberOfBytes": "128"
        },
        "t_uint128": {
          "encoding": "inplace",
          "label": "uint128",
          "numberOfBytes": "16"
        },
        "t_uint256": {
          "encoding": "inplace",
          "label": "uint256",
          "numberOfBytes": "32"
        }
      }
    }