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setGlobal

setGlobal is a method that submits a special transaction to the network that will modify global variables that are meant to be accessible by all nodes. The setGlobal method takes 4 parameters:

  1. address is a string that represents the address of the global account
  2. value is the transaction object that will be submitted to the network
  3. when is the time the transaction should be applied to the network
  4. source is the account that originated the transaction

Why is this important?

💡

setGlobal was a method we decided to add to Shardus when we found the need for global variables. Liberdus required global variables that we were able to add by introducing the setGlobal method. It works by submitting a transaction with a special global flag that aims to eventually get applied to every shard in the network. Since normal accounts are only stored in a single shard, it defeated the purpose of scalability since the global variables needed to be accessed frequently by every node. Shown below is an example of the tally transaction for scoring the votes for all the proposal submissions to change the network parameters.

function apply(tx, wrappedStates) {
    switch (tx.type) {
        case 'tally': {
            const network: NetworkAccount = wrappedStates[tx.network].data
            const issue: IssueAccount = wrappedStates[tx.issue].data
            const margin = 100 / (2 * (issue.proposalCount + 1)) / 100

            const defaultProposal: ProposalAccount = wrappedStates[crypto.hash(`issue-${issue.number}-proposal-1`)].data
            const sortedProposals: ProposalAccount[] = tx.proposals
                .map((id: string) => wrappedStates[id].data)
                .sort((a: ProposalAccount, b: ProposalAccount) => a.power < b.power)
            let winner = defaultProposal

            for (const proposal of sortedProposals) {
                proposal.winner = false
            }

            if (sortedProposals.length >= 2) {
                const firstPlace = sortedProposals[0]
                const secondPlace = sortedProposals[1]
                const marginToWin = secondPlace.power + margin * secondPlace.power
                if (firstPlace.power >= marginToWin) {
                    winner = firstPlace
                }
            }

            winner.winner = true
            const next = winner.parameters
            const nextWindows: Windows = {
                proposalWindow: [
                    network.windows.applyWindow[1], network.windows.applyWindow[1] + TIME_FOR_PROPOSALS
                ],
                votingWindow: [
                    network.windows.applyWindow[1] + TIME_FOR_PROPOSALS, network.windows.applyWindow[1] +
                    TIME_FOR_PROPOSALS + TIME_FOR_VOTING
                ],
                graceWindow: [
                    network.windows.applyWindow[1] + TIME_FOR_PROPOSALS + TIME_FOR_VOTING,
                    network.windows.applyWindow[1] + TIME_FOR_PROPOSALS + TIME_FOR_VOTING + TIME_FOR_GRACE,
                ],
                applyWindow: [
                    network.windows.applyWindow[1] + TIME_FOR_PROPOSALS + TIME_FOR_VOTING + TIME_FOR_GRACE,
                    network.windows.applyWindow[1] + TIME_FOR_PROPOSALS + TIME_FOR_VOTING + TIME_FOR_GRACE + TIME_FOR_APPLY,
                ],
            }

           const when = tx.timestamp + ONE_SECOND * 10

            dapp.setGlobal(
                networkAccount,
                {
                    type: 'apply_tally',
                    timestamp: when,
                    network: networkAccount,
                    next,
                    nextWindows,
                },
                when,
                networkAccount,
            )

           issue.winner = winner.id

           from.timestamp = tx.timestamp
           issue.timestamp = tx.timestamp
           winner.timestamp = tx.timestamp
           dapp.log('APPLIED TALLY TX')
           break
        }
        case 'apply_tally': {
           const network: NetworkAccount = wrappedStates[tx.network].data
           network.next = tx.next
           network.nextWindows = tx.nextWindows
           network.timestamp = tx.timestamp
           dapp.log(`APPLIED TALLY GLOBAL`)
           break
        }
    }
}

This transaction works by grabbing all the proposal accounts from the most recent issue account and finding the account with the most votes. If the proposal with the most votes doesn't beat 2nd place by a margin of 100 / (2 * (proposalCount + 1)) / 100 votes, then the default proposal or "no change" will be applied. We also create the next window time frames for all the network phases within the next voting cycle.