Is JsonRpcProvider Serializable?

[devstein]

Hi 👋

I want to support the following use-case:

1. A popup (window.open) appears with a lis of providers to select from
2. User selects and connects to as provider within the popup
3. The popup serializers the provider information and sends it back to the parent window
4. The parent window loads the serialized provider via ethers

Is this possible with the ethers? If not, any advice or guidance on how to implement this flow? Is this something that is do-able with the WalletConnect protocol?

Thank you!

[ricmoo]

I don’t think this is something that is possible. If you have a URL that is sufficient to recreate a new instance of a JsonRpcProvider, but things like the events being listened too are not preserved. Also, JsonRpcProviders could be backed by non-URLs, like the Web3Provider which often is connected to MetaMask; it would be a huge security issue if you could pass MetaMask around like this, so I’m fairly certain you cannot.

Depending what you want, I would suspect the network name is sufficient though, and you can always use getDefaultProvider to get a new provider connected to that network.

Anyways, I think that is the best you can do. Let me know if you figure something else out.

[devstein]

Thanks @ricmoo this is very helpful!