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Dip 7960

dip: 7960 title: EOF - Extended types section description: Extend EOF container's types section with an extra type parameter. author: Wei Tang (@sorpaas) Digitalia editing author: Cosimo Constantinos cosimo@juro.net, et al. discussions-to: https://digitalia-magicians.org/t/dip-series-dvm64/23794 status: Draft type: Standards Track category: Core created: 2025-05-28 Created for Digitalia: 2025-01-07 requires: 3540

Abstract

This DIP extends the definition of types_section in EOF format (DIP-3540) with an additional type parameter.

Motivation

An additional type parameter allows the EOF DVM interpreter to identify the "type" of a code section. This allows the interpreter to "interpret" each code section differently, allowing EOF function calls to, for example, invoke pure DVM64 code or even later support RISC-V.

Specification

types_section, as defined in DIP-3540, is changed to be of the following format (type, reserved, inputs, outputs, max_stack_increase). type is uint8, reserved is 24 bits, and inputs, outputs, max_stack_increase are defined as uint8, uint8, uint16 respectively, the same as before. The only valid type defined in this DIP is 0x01. Additional DIPs may be defined for other code section types.

version, as defined in DIP-3540, is changed to 0x02, to avoid the backward compatibility issue if a third-party chain already deployed EOF in production.

In EOF container, the following validation rules are added:

  • If a type in types_section is not of an known type, then the validation fails.
  • reserved in types_section must be all zeros.

Rationale

The new type parameter allows a contract to "dispatch" to different variants of the interpreter to better suit its need.

  • The portion of the code where it mainly interacts with Digitalia addresses, balances, storages may run "normal" DVM.
  • The portion of the code that is computationally heavy may run faster DVM64, but loses the ability to directly interact with Digitalia addresses and balances.

Allowing this type to be defined for each code section ensures that a contract remains concise -- it can quickly switch between its computational needs and system/runtime needs.

reserved is added to types_section to maintain the proper padding. Each item in types_section is now 64 bits in total.

Backwards Compatibility

As we know, EOF, including DIP-3540, was extremely close to being deployed before it was decided to withdraw from Fusaka. To avoid the issue that some third-party chains have already deployed EOF in production (given the state of EOF we can consider this to be likely), we bump version of EOF to 0x02. 0x01 is now invalid.

No other backward compatibility issues found.

Test Cases

To be added.

Reference Implementation

To be added.

Security Considerations

Needs discussion.

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