By the end of this lesson, you will be able to:
- Use the
seeds
andbump
constraints to work with PDA accounts in Anchor - Enable and use the
init_if_needed
constraint - Use the
realloc
constraint to reallocate space on an existing account - Use the
close
constraint to close an existing account
- The
seeds
andbump
constraints are used to initialize and validate PDA accounts in Anchor - The
init_if_needed
constraint is used to conditionally initialize a new account - The
realloc
constraint is used to reallocate space on an existing account - The
close
constraint is used to close an account and refund its rent
In this lesson you'll learn how to work with PDAs, reallocate accounts, and close accounts in Anchor.
Recall that Anchor programs separate instruction logic from account validation. Account validation primarily happens within structs that represent the list of accounts needed for a given instruction. Each field of the struct represents a different account, and you can customize the validation performed on the account using the #[account(...)]
attribute macro.
In addition to using constraints for account validation, some constraints can handle repeatable tasks that would otherwise require a lot of boilerplate inside our instruction logic. This lesson will introduce the seeds
, bump
, realloc
, and close
constraints to help you initialize and validate PDAs, reallocate accounts, and close accounts.
Recall that PDAs are derived using a list of optional seeds, a bump seed, and a program ID. Anchor provides a convenient way to validate a PDA with the seeds
and bump
constraints.
#[derive(Accounts)]
struct ExampleAccounts {
#[account(
seeds = [b"example_seed"],
bump
)]
pub pda_account: Account<'info, AccountType>,
}
During account validation, Anchor will derive a PDA using the seeds specified in the seeds
constraint and verify that the account passed into the instruction matches the PDA found using the specified seeds
.
When the bump
constraint is included without specifying a specific bump, Anchor will default to using the canonical bump (the first bump that results in a valid PDA). In most cases you should use the canonical bump.
You can access other fields from within the struct from constraints, so you can specify seeds that are dependent on other accounts like the signer's public key.
You can also reference the deserialized instruction data if you add the #[instruction(...)]
attribute macro to the struct.
For example, the following example shows a list of accounts that include pda_account
and user
. The pda_account
is constrained such that the seeds must be the string "example_seed," the public key of user
, and the string passed into the instruction as instruction_data
.
#[derive(Accounts)]
#[instruction(instruction_data: String)]
pub struct Example<'info> {
#[account(
seeds = [b"example_seed", user.key().as_ref(), instruction_data.as_ref()],
bump
)]
pub pda_account: Account<'info, AccountType>,
#[account(mut)]
pub user: Signer<'info>
}
If the pda_account
address provided by the client doesn't match the PDA derived using the specified seeds and the canonical bump, then the account validation will fail.
You can combine the seeds
and bump
constraints with the init
constraint to initialize an account using a PDA.
Recall that the init
constraint must be used in combination with the payer
and space
constraints to specify the account that will pay for account initialization and the space to allocate on the new account. Additionally, you must include system_program
as one of the fields of the account validation struct.
#[derive(Accounts)]
pub struct InitializePda<'info> {
#[account(
init,
seeds = [b"example_seed", user.key().as_ref()],
bump,
payer = user,
space = 8 + 8
)]
pub pda_account: Account<'info, AccountType>,
#[account(mut)]
pub user: Signer<'info>,
pub system_program: Program<'info, System>,
}
#[account]
pub struct AccountType {
pub data: u64,
}
When using init
for non-PDA accounts, Anchor defaults to setting the owner of the initialized account to be the program currently executing the instruction.
However, when using init
in combination with seeds
and bump
, the owner must be the executing program. This is because initializing an account for the PDA requires a signature that only the executing program can provide. In other words, the signature verification for the initialization of the PDA account would fail if the program ID used to derive the PDA did not match the program ID of the executing program.
When determining the value of space
for an account initialized and owned by the executing Anchor program, remember that the first 8 bytes are reserved for the account discriminator. This is an 8-byte value that Anchor calculates and uses to identify the program account types. You can use this reference to calculate how much space you should allocate for an account.
The account list for an instruction can get really long for some programs. To simplify the client-side experience when invoking an Anchor program instruction, we can turn on seed inference.
Seed inference adds information about PDA seeds to the IDL so that Anchor can infer PDA seeds from existing call-site information. In the previous example, the seeds are b"example_seed"
and user.key()
. The first is static and therefore known, and the second is known because user
is the transaction signer.
If you use seed inference when building your program, then as long as you're calling the program using Anchor, you don't need to explicitly derive and pass in the PDA. Instead, the Anchor library will do it for you.
You can turn on seed inference in the Anchor.toml
file with seeds = true
under [features]
.
[features]
seeds = true
Let's briefly look at the #[instruction(...)]
attribute macro before moving on. When using #[instruction(...)]
, the instruction data you provide in the list of arguments must match and be in the same order as the instruction arguments. You can omit unused arguments at the end of the list, but you must include all arguments up until the last one you will be using.
For example, imagine an instruction has arguments input_one
, input_two
, and input_three
. If your account constraints need to reference input_one
and input_three
, you need to list all three arguments in the #[instruction(...)]
attribute macro.
However, if your constraints only reference input_one
and input_two
, you can omit input_three
.
pub fn example_instruction(
ctx: Context<Example>,
input_one: String,
input_two: String,
input_three: String,
) -> Result<()> {
...
Ok(())
}
#[derive(Accounts)]
#[instruction(input_one:String, input_two:String)]
pub struct Example<'info> {
...
}
Additionally, you will get an error if you list the inputs in the incorrect order:
#[derive(Accounts)]
#[instruction(input_two:String, input_one:String)]
pub struct Example<'info> {
...
}
Anchor provides an init_if_needed
constraint that can be used to initialize an account if the account has not already been initialized.
This feature is gated behind a feature flag to make sure you are intentional about using it. For security reasons, it's smart to avoid having one instruction branch into multiple logic paths. And as the name suggests, init_if_needed
executes one of two possible code paths depending on the state of the account in question.
When using init_if_needed
, you need to make sure to properly protect your program against re-initialization attacks. You need to include checks in your code that check that the initialized account cannot be reset to its initial settings after the first time it was initialized.
To use init_if_needed
, you must first enable the feature in Cargo.toml
.
[dependencies]
anchor-lang = { version = "0.25.0", features = ["init-if-needed"] }
Once you’ve enabled the feature, you can include the constraint in the #[account(…)]
attribute macro. The example below demonstrates using the init_if_needed
constraint to initialize a new associated token account if one does not already exist.
#[program]
mod example {
use super::*;
pub fn initialize(ctx: Context<Initialize>) -> Result<()> {
Ok(())
}
}
#[derive(Accounts)]
pub struct Initialize<'info> {
#[account(
init_if_needed,
payer = payer,
associated_token::mint = mint,
associated_token::authority = payer
)]
pub token_account: Account<'info, TokenAccount>,
pub mint: Account<'info, Mint>,
#[account(mut)]
pub payer: Signer<'info>,
pub system_program: Program<'info, System>,
pub token_program: Program<'info, Token>,
pub associated_token_program: Program<'info, AssociatedToken>,
pub rent: Sysvar<'info, Rent>,
}
When the initialize
instruction is invoked in the previous example, Anchor will check if the token_account
exists and initialize it if it does not. If it already exists, then the instruction will continue without initializing the account. Just as with the init
constraint, you can use init_if_needed
in conjunction with seeds
and bump
if the account is a PDA.
The realloc
constraint provides a simple way to reallocate space for existing accounts.
The realloc
constraint must be used in combination with the following constraints:
mut
- the account must be set as mutablerealloc::payer
- the account to subtract or add lamports to depending on whether the reallocation is decreasing or increasing account spacerealloc::zero
- boolean to specify if new memory should be zero initialized
As with init
, you must include system_program
as one of the accounts in the account validation struct when using realloc
.
Below is an example of reallocating space for an account that stores a data
field of type String
.
#[derive(Accounts)]
#[instruction(instruction_data: String)]
pub struct ReallocExample<'info> {
#[account(
mut,
seeds = [b"example_seed", user.key().as_ref()],
bump,
realloc = 8 + 4 + instruction_data.len(),
realloc::payer = user,
realloc::zero = false,
)]
pub pda_account: Account<'info, AccountType>,
#[account(mut)]
pub user: Signer<'info>,
pub system_program: Program<'info, System>,
}
#[account]
pub struct AccountType {
pub data: String,
}
Notice that realloc
is set to 8 + 4 + instruction_data.len()
. This breaks down as follows:
8
is for the account discriminator4
is for the 4 bytes of space that BORSH uses to store the length of the stringinstruction_data.len()
is the length of the string itself
If the change in account data length is additive, lamports will be transferred from the realloc::payer
to the account in order to maintain rent exemption. Likewise, if the change is subtractive, lamports will be transferred from the account back to the realloc::payer
.
The realloc::zero
constraint is required in order to determine whether the new memory should be zero initialized after reallocation. This constraint should be set to true in cases where you expect the memory of an account to shrink and expand multiple times. That way you zero out space that would otherwise show as stale data.
The close
constraint provides a simple and secure way to close an existing account.
The close
constraint marks the account as closed at the end of the instruction’s execution by setting its discriminator to the CLOSED_ACCOUNT_DISCRIMINATOR
and sends its lamports to a specified account. Setting the discriminator to a special variant makes account revival attacks (where a subsequent instruction adds the rent exemption lamports again) impossible. If someone tries to reinitialize the account, the reinitialization will fail the discriminator check and be considered invalid by the program.
The example below uses the close
constraint to close the data_account
and sends the lamports allocated for rent to the receiver
account.
pub fn close(ctx: Context<Close>) -> Result<()> {
Ok(())
}
#[derive(Accounts)]
pub struct Close<'info> {
#[account(mut, close = receiver)]
pub data_account: Account<'info, AccountType>,
#[account(mut)]
pub receiver: Signer<'info>
}
Let’s practice the concepts we’ve gone over in this lesson by creating a Movie Review program using the Anchor framework.
This program will allow users to:
- Use a PDA to initialize a new movie review account to store the review
- Update the content of an existing movie review account
- Close an existing movie review account
To begin, let’s create a new project using anchor init
.
anchor init anchor-movie-review-program
Next, navigate to the lib.rs
file within the programs
folder and you should see the following starter code.
use anchor_lang::prelude::*;
declare_id!("Fg6PaFpoGXkYsidMpWTK6W2BeZ7FEfcYkg476zPFsLnS");
#[program]
pub mod anchor_movie_review_program {
use super::*;
pub fn initialize(ctx: Context<Initialize>) -> Result<()> {
Ok(())
}
}
#[derive(Accounts)]
pub struct Initialize {}
Go ahead and remove the initialize
instruction and Initialize
type.
use anchor_lang::prelude::*;
declare_id!("Fg6PaFpoGXkYsidMpWTK6W2BeZ7FEfcYkg476zPFsLnS");
#[program]
pub mod anchor_movie_review_program {
use super::*;
}
First, let’s use the #[account]
attribute macro to define the MovieAccountState
that will represent the data structure of the movie review accounts. As a reminder, the #[account]
attribute macro implements various traits that help with serialization and deserialization of the account, set the discriminator for the account, and set the owner of a new account as the program ID defined in the declare_id!
macro.
Within each movie review account, we’ll store the:
reviewer
- user creating the reviewrating
- rating for the movietitle
- title of the moviedescription
- content of the review
use anchor_lang::prelude::*;
declare_id!("Fg6PaFpoGXkYsidMpWTK6W2BeZ7FEfcYkg476zPFsLnS");
#[program]
pub mod anchor_movie_review_program {
use super::*;
}
#[account]
pub struct MovieAccountState {
pub reviewer: Pubkey, // 32
pub rating: u8, // 1
pub title: String, // 4 + len()
pub description: String, // 4 + len()
}
Next, let’s implement the add_movie_review
instruction. The add_movie_review
instruction will require a Context
of type AddMovieReview
that we’ll implement shortly.
The instruction will require three additional arguments as instruction data provided by a reviewer:
title
- title of the movie as aString
description
- details of the review as aString
rating
- rating for the movie as au8
Within the instruction logic, we’ll populate the data of the new movie_review
account with the instruction data. We’ll also set the reviewer
field as the initializer
account from the instruction context.
#[program]
pub mod movie_review{
use super::*;
pub fn add_movie_review(
ctx: Context<AddMovieReview>,
title: String,
description: String,
rating: u8,
) -> Result<()> {
msg!("Movie Review Account Created");
msg!("Title: {}", title);
msg!("Description: {}", description);
msg!("Rating: {}", rating);
let movie_review = &mut ctx.accounts.movie_review;
movie_review.reviewer = ctx.accounts.initializer.key();
movie_review.title = title;
movie_review.rating = rating;
movie_review.description = description;
Ok(())
}
}
Next, let’s create the AddMovieReview
struct that we used as the generic in the instruction's context. This struct will list the accounts the add_movie_review
instruction requires.
Remember, you'll need the following macros:
- The
#[derive(Accounts)]
macro is used to deserialize and validate the list of accounts specified within the struct - The
#[instruction(...)]
attribute macro is used to access the instruction data passed into the instruction - The
#[account(...)]
attribute macro then specifies additional constraints on the accounts
The movie_review
account is a PDA that needs to be initialized, so we'll add the seeds
and bump
constraints as well as the init
constraint with its required payer
and space
constraints.
For the PDA seeds, we'll use the movie title and the reviewer's public key. The payer for the initialization should be the reviewer, and the space allocated on the account should be enough for the account discriminator, the reviewer's public key, and the movie review's rating, title, and description.
#[derive(Accounts)]
#[instruction(title:String, description:String)]
pub struct AddMovieReview<'info> {
#[account(
init,
seeds = [title.as_bytes(), initializer.key().as_ref()],
bump,
payer = initializer,
space = 8 + 32 + 1 + 4 + title.len() + 4 + description.len()
)]
pub movie_review: Account<'info, MovieAccountState>,
#[account(mut)]
pub initializer: Signer<'info>,
pub system_program: Program<'info, System>,
}
Next, let’s implement the update_movie_review
instruction with a context whose generic type is UpdateMovieReview
.
Just as before, the instruction will require three additional arguments as instruction data provided by a reviewer:
title
- title of the moviedescription
- details of the reviewrating
- rating for the movie
Within the instruction logic we’ll update the rating
and description
stored on the movie_review
account.
While the title
doesn't get used in the instruction function itself, we'll need it for account validation of movie_review
in the next step.
#[program]
pub mod anchor_movie_review_program {
use super::*;
...
pub fn update_movie_review(
ctx: Context<UpdateMovieReview>,
title: String,
description: String,
rating: u8,
) -> Result<()> {
msg!("Movie review account space reallocated");
msg!("Title: {}", title);
msg!("Description: {}", description);
msg!("Rating: {}", rating);
let movie_review = &mut ctx.accounts.movie_review;
movie_review.rating = rating;
movie_review.description = description;
Ok(())
}
}
Next, let’s create the UpdateMovieReview
struct to define the accounts that the update_movie_review
instruction needs.
Since the movie_review
account will have already been initialized by this point, we no longer need the init
constraint. However, since the value of description
may now be different, we need to use the realloc
constraint to reallocate the space on the account. Accompanying this, we need the mut
, realloc::payer
, and realloc::zero
constraints.
We'll also still need the seeds
and bump
constraints as we had them in AddMovieReview
.
#[derive(Accounts)]
#[instruction(title:String, description:String)]
pub struct UpdateMovieReview<'info> {
#[account(
mut,
seeds = [title.as_bytes(), initializer.key().as_ref()],
bump,
realloc = 8 + 32 + 1 + 4 + title.len() + 4 + description.len(),
realloc::payer = initializer,
realloc::zero = true,
)]
pub movie_review: Account<'info, MovieAccountState>,
#[account(mut)]
pub initializer: Signer<'info>,
pub system_program: Program<'info, System>,
}
Note that the realloc
constraint is set to the new space required by the movie_review
account based on the updated value of description
.
Additionally, the realloc::payer
constraint specifies that any additional lamports required or refunded will come from or be send to the initializer
account.
Finally, we set the realloc::zero
constraint to true
because the movie_review
account may be updated multiple times either shrinking or expanding the space allocated to the account.
Lastly, let’s implement the delete_movie_review
instruction to close an existing movie_review
account.
We'll use a context whose generic type is DeleteMovieReview
and won't include any additional instruction data. Since we are only closing an account, we actually don't need any instruction logic inside the body of the function. The closing itself will be handled by the Anchor constraint in the DeleteMovieReview
type.
#[program]
pub mod anchor_movie_review_program {
use super::*;
...
pub fn delete_movie_review(_ctx: Context<DeleteMovieReview>, title: String) -> Result<()> {
msg!("Movie review for {} deleted", title);
Ok(())
}
}
Next, let’s implement the DeleteMovieReview
struct.
#[derive(Accounts)]
#[instruction(title: String)]
pub struct DeleteMovieReview<'info> {
#[account(
mut,
seeds=[title.as_bytes(), initializer.key().as_ref()],
bump,
close=initializer
)]
pub movie_review: Account<'info, MovieAccountState>,
#[account(mut)]
pub initializer: Signer<'info>,
pub system_program: Program<'info, System>
}
Here we use the close
constraint to specify we are closing the movie_review
account and that the rent should be refunded to the initializer
account. We also include the seeds
and bump
constraints for the movie_review
account for validation. Anchor then handles the additional logic required to securely close the account.
The program should be good to go! Now let's test it out. Navigate to anchor-movie-review-program.ts
and replace the default test code with the following.
Here we:
- Create default values for the movie review instruction data
- Derive the movie review account PDA
- Create placeholders for tests
import * as anchor from "@project-serum/anchor"
import { Program } from "@project-serum/anchor"
import { assert, expect } from "chai"
import { AnchorMovieReviewProgram } from "../target/types/anchor_movie_review_program"
describe("anchor-movie-review-program", () => {
// Configure the client to use the local cluster.
const provider = anchor.AnchorProvider.env()
anchor.setProvider(provider)
const program = anchor.workspace
.AnchorMovieReviewProgram as Program<AnchorMovieReviewProgram>
const movie = {
title: "Just a test movie",
description: "Wow what a good movie it was real great",
rating: 5,
}
const [moviePda] = anchor.web3.PublicKey.findProgramAddressSync(
[Buffer.from(movie.title), provider.wallet.publicKey.toBuffer()],
program.programId
)
it("Movie review is added`", async () => {})
it("Movie review is updated`", async () => {})
it("Deletes a movie review", async () => {})
})
Next, let's create the first test for the addMovieReview
instruction. Note that we don't explicitly add .accounts
. This is because the Wallet
from AnchorProvider
is automatically included as a signer, Anchor can infer certain accounts like SystemProgram
, and Anchor can also infer the movieReview
PDA from the title
instruction argument and the signer's public key.
Once the instruction runs, we then fetch the movieReview
account and check that the data stored on the account match the expected values.
it("Movie review is added`", async () => {
// Add your test here.
const tx = await program.methods
.addMovieReview(movie.title, movie.description, movie.rating)
.rpc()
const account = await program.account.movieAccountState.fetch(moviePda)
expect(movie.title === account.title)
expect(movie.rating === account.rating)
expect(movie.description === account.description)
expect(account.reviewer === provider.wallet.publicKey)
})
Next, let's create the test for the updateMovieReview
instruction following the same process as before.
it("Movie review is updated`", async () => {
const newDescription = "Wow this is new"
const newRating = 4
const tx = await program.methods
.updateMovieReview(movie.title, newDescription, newRating)
.rpc()
const account = await program.account.movieAccountState.fetch(moviePda)
expect(movie.title === account.title)
expect(newRating === account.rating)
expect(newDescription === account.description)
expect(account.reviewer === provider.wallet.publicKey)
})
Next, create the test for the deleteMovieReview
instruction
it("Deletes a movie review", async () => {
const tx = await program.methods
.deleteMovieReview(movie.title)
.rpc()
})
Lastly, run anchor test
and you should see the following output in the console.
anchor-movie-review-program
✔ Movie review is added` (139ms)
✔ Movie review is updated` (404ms)
✔ Deletes a movie review (403ms)
3 passing (950ms)
If you need more time with this project to feel comfortable with these concepts, feel free to have a look at the solution code before continuing.
Now it’s your turn to build something independently. Equipped with the concepts introduced in this lesson, try to recreate the Student Intro program that we've used before using the Anchor framework.
The Student Intro program is a Solana Program that lets students introduce themselves. The program takes a user's name and a short message as the instruction data and creates an account to store the data on-chain.
Using what you've learned in this lesson, build out this program. The program should include instructions to:
- Initialize a PDA account for each student that stores the student's name and their short message
- Update the message on an existing account
- Close an existing account
Try to do this independently if you can! But if you get stuck, feel free to reference the solution code.