Smart contract quasi-introspection

EIPs
1

Hi!

I was wondering, would it not be good to have a standard interface in smart contract that outputs its ABI? e.g.

interface IABIIntrospection {
  function getABI() external view returns(string);
}

The reasoning is, we mostly publish this off-chain on Etherscan, but I feel like a smart contract should be able to broadcast its ABI.
But I am somehow sure this has already been discussed, but I haven’t found, so I apologize in advance.

Another layer, which may have not yet been discussed, would be an interface to point to the original source code + compiler version/infos, as we send to Etherscan. This could be an URL, which could be an ERC-4804 web3:// URL pointing on-chain, or an ipfs:// URL.

Thanks for the discussion.

2 Likes
2

I’m not sure if this is necessary, but there is a similar EIP that may be useful for you to follow:

EIP165 Standard Interface Detection, which allows a contract to declare and provide its implemented standard interface.

This scheme also has issues that need attention, here is an example, unqualified getABI may lead to similar issues.