OpenZeppelin / OpenZeppelin/openzeppelin-contracts

Add BigInt library support

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Solidity
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Description

🧐 Motivation
This issue is brought to my attention by a question from @wly99.

Say I want to calculate the future value of principal on a 30-year home loan:

futurePrincipal = principal * (1 + stabilityFee / 12) ** monthsLeft

since stabilityFee is a floating number, (e.g. 0.00225) so we need to multiply it by 10000 in practice; but then with the power of monthsLeft = 12 * 30 = 360, this value could easily exceed type(uint256).max.

We want arbitrary precision arithmetic for BigInt.

📝 Details

There is one sample library BigInt {} in Solidity's doc here:

// SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-3.0
pragma solidity ^0.8.0;

struct bigint {
    uint[] limbs;
}

library BigInt {
    function fromUint(uint x) internal pure returns (bigint memory r) {
        r.limbs = new uint[](1);
        r.limbs[0] = x;
    }

    function add(bigint memory _a, bigint memory _b) internal pure returns (bigint memory r) {
        r.limbs = new uint[](max(_a.limbs.length, _b.limbs.length));
        uint carry = 0;
        for (uint i = 0; i < r.limbs.length; ++i) {
            uint a = limb(_a, i);
            uint b = limb(_b, i);
            unchecked {
                r.limbs[i] = a + b + carry;

                if (a + b < a || (a + b == type(uint).max && carry > 0))
                    carry = 1;
                else
                    carry = 0;
            }
        }
        if (carry > 0) {
            // too bad, we have to add a limb
            uint[] memory newLimbs = new uint[](r.limbs.length + 1);
            uint i;
            for (i = 0; i < r.limbs.length; ++i)
                newLimbs[i] = r.limbs[i];
            newLimbs[i] = carry;
            r.limbs = newLimbs;
        }
    }

    function limb(bigint memory _a, uint _limb) internal pure returns (uint) {
        return _limb < _a.limbs.length ? _a.limbs[_limb] : 0;
    }

    function max(uint a, uint b) private pure returns (uint) {
        return a > b ? a : b;
    }
}

contract C {
    using BigInt for bigint;

    function f() public pure {
        bigint memory x = BigInt.fromUint(7);
        bigint memory y = BigInt.fromUint(type(uint).max);
        bigint memory z = x.add(y);
        assert(z.limb(1) > 0);
    }
}

But still, would love the excellent engineers and security experts from OpenZeppelin community to take a more careful vetting and standardize it by including in future version of the library.

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start with the Solidity documentation's BigInt library sample and the motivating 30-year loan calculation in this issue. The repository files and tests are not identified; completion would require an agreed, security-vetted arbitrary-precision API and corresponding tests, which the issue does not specify.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
solidity
Domain
blockchain
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
5/5
Estimated time
Over a week
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Needs clarification
Newbie friendliness
25/100

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