does cast storage need contract abi?

[jaimebarrancos]

While trying to solve challenge of section 3, when I run cast storage it always tries to get the code, searching my local files, and then searching Etherscan for the contracts.
I thought having the code of the contracts was not required for the command to work.

Here is what happens when it tries to fetch the code from Etherscan:

No matching artifacts found, fetching source code from Etherscan...

Error: 
Compiler run failed:
Error (6275): Source "lib/ctf/src/protocol/Challenge.sol" not found: File not found. Searched the following locations: "/private/var/folders/70/pyz3jhgd6ps9mb2qgll4g50r0000gn/T/.tmp17faC3".
 --> S3/src/challenges/S3.sol:4:1:
  |
4 | import {Challenge} from "lib/ctf/src/protocol/Challenge.sol";
  | ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

When running:

cast storage --rpc-url=http://127.0.0.1:8545 0xA2626bE06C11211A44fb6cA324A67EBDBCd30B70

I have a local anvil chain with an alchemy key to Sepolia setup.

[johnsonstephan]

cast storage

• Use: Get the raw value of a contract's storage slot or its full storage layout. cast storage [options] address slot
• Description: Get the raw value of a contract's storage slot. (Slot locations greater than 18446744073709551615 (u64::MAX) should be given as hex. Use cast index to compute mapping slots.) Emit the slot number to get the full storage layout (requires contract to be verified on Etherscan with a Solidity version > 0.6.5 or you must be in a Forge project with a local contract matching the deployed bytecode). The address (address) can be an ENS name or an address.

Source: Foundry Book

[jaimebarrancos]

I've played around with it and, to use cast storage the ABI is not needed. But when not specifying the slot, the contract IS required . Why ?

I believe it's because the output would become unreadable / useless so it would only make sense to use cast storage with access to the code. This way foundry would return a usable version of the storage.

[johnsonstephan]

Take your time with the documentation as you are learning.

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Examples

1. Get the value of slot 0 on the WETH contract.
   cast storage 0xC02aaA39b223FE8D0A0e5C4F27eAD9083C756Cc2 0
2. Get the full storage layout of the Milady contract. (this reflects your case of "But when not specifying the slot, the contract IS required")
   cast storage 0x5Af0D9827E0c53E4799BB226655A1de152A425a5

As you're saying, it would be "useless" without the contract.

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Suggest using the --help flag as you're learning as well.

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