Difference Between ethers.wallet(privateKey, provider) and provider.getSigner()

[OmarWaqar123]

1. Can somebody please tell me What is the difference between ethers.wallet(privateKey, provider) and provider.getSigner()

const signer = provider.getSigner();
provider.getSigner()

I am a bit confused between both of them, are they the same thing??

2. and What is the difference between ethers.getContract(address,deployer) (which we used while writing tests for hardhat-fund-me) and ethers.Contract(address, abi, signer)(which we used in index.js front end)

3. and what is the difference between
   ethers.getSigner and ethers.provider.getSigner
   I search about the 3rd question on google and found some answers saying that ethers.getSigner() returns a promise whereas the other one doesn't return a promise. But I am still a bit confused can you please elaborate a bit more

[krakxn]

1. ethers.wallet(privateKey, provider) essentially creates a wallet instance with the private key; the provider parameter is optional, but for precision (specificity) we additionally use provider, which essentially "connects" the wallet instance with the provider.

Whereas provider.getSigner() returns the JsonRpcSigner (or put simply, signer) which is connected to the provider (which essentially is an Ethereum node, e.g. MetaMask).

2. ethers.getContract(address,deployer) returns the contract (serves as a getter function for the contract) at address address and with the interface (optional, for specificity) deployer.

ethers.Contract(address, abi, signer) -- (some context, Contract is an object in the Ethers.js library) -- in this case, we create an instance of Contract with the attributes as parameters, i.e. a Contract object with the properties: address, abi, signer

3. ethers.provider.getSigner is essentially the same as the one explained above. ethers.getSigner -- is this correct? I do not think you can use it in this matter; in any case, I am speculating this one. Test it out and let me know :) (PS I am fairly certain we have to use the provider object)

[OmarWaqar123]

talking about 1st point you mentioned, So basically signer means the private key and provider means the Ethereum node like the one which we get when we run yarn hardhat node e.g http://127.0.0.1:8545/ ??

[krakxn]

provider.getSigner() in simple terms returns the signer in accordance with the provider (e.g. MetaMask)

Technically, signer is a JsonRpcSigner and provider is essentially an Ethereum node (e.g. some arbitrary provider, MetaMask etc.). "like the one which we get when we run yarn hardhat node e.g http://127.0.0.1:8545/ ??" Yes! We are connecting to GitHub's (or any arbitrary website) IP address (node) whenever we use it.

[OmarWaqar123]

thnks

[krakxn]

Good luck!