Best way to convert from BigNumber with ethers CLI ?

[lildata]

Hi,

I'm calling a function which returns a Promise / BigNumber using the ethers cli & I am trying to get a number out of it (like with BigNumber.toNumber()).

ethers eval '(new Contract("0x57f1887a8BF19b14fC0dF6Fd9B2acc9Af147eA85", [ "function nameExpires(uint256) external view returns(uint)" ], provider).nameExpires(ethers.utils.id("vitalik")))'

Now of course since I am on the command line I would rather not create a whole block with async / await, is there a more elegant way to do so? (within eval or with an external tool)

Many thanks for your help.

[zemse]

I know this response doesn't exactly answer your question related to ethers CLI, but there is a playground.ethers.org which is like console/REPLish experience of ethers, which you can use for quick trying out stuff.

[lildata]

I know, playground.ethers.org is really handy.
But the CLI is really useful for use in scripts & automation. It is really a killer feature 💯

[ricmoo]

You need to await on a Promise, there isn’t much way around that. You could use a show script and use the CLI and use run instead of eval. I could add support for “here documents” if that is what you are asking for?

In your example above, you might be able to change the return type in the ABI to uint48 instead of uint256 (since output is not included in the selector), which will coerce it into a number, but will throw if it is outside the safe range. But that’s more specific to this example rather than something more general.

[lildata]

Ok sure, wrapping everything & using run is the best way.
I am not sure "here documents" would really help here...

Many thanks 😄