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Limiting Access

The optional access subsection is made of a single definition, it indicates the agent who is allowed to access the function. When this definition is omitted, anyone is allowed to call the function. When the definition is present it should be an access identifier, optionally followed by an explanatory comment. Access identifiers can be one of the following:

  • self: Only the smart contract itself can call this function.
  • chain: Only the chain owner can call this function.
  • anything else: The name of an AgentID or AgentID[] variable in state storage. Only the agent(s) defined there can call this function. When this option is used you should also provide functionality that can initialize and/or modify this variable. As long as this state variable has not been set, nobody will be allowed to call this function.

The Schema Tool will automatically generate code to properly check the access rights of the agent that called the function before the actual function is called.

You can see usage examples of the access identifier in the schema definition file, where the state variable owner is used as an access identifier. The init function initializes this state variable, and the setOwner function can only be used by the current owner to set a new owner. Finally, the member function can also only be called by the current owner.

Note that there can be different access identifiers for different functions as needed. You can set up as many access identifiers as you like.

In the next section we will look at the params subsection.