Storage Maps

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In this recipe, we will see how to store a mapping from keys to values, similar to Rust's own HashMap.

Declaring a StorageMap

We declare a single storage map with the following syntax:

#[pallet::storage]
#[pallet::getter(fn simple_map)]
	pub(super) type SimpleMap<T: Config> =
	StorageMap<_, Blake2_128Concat, T::AccountId, u32, ValueQuery>;

Much of this should look familiar to you from storage values. Reading the line from left to right we have:

  • SimpleMap - the name of the storage map
  • get(fn simple_map) - the name of a getter function that will return values from the map.
  • : map hasher(blake2_128_concat) - beginning of the type declaration. This is a map and it will use the blake2_128_concat hasher. More on this below.
  • T::AccountId => u32 - The specific key and value type of the map. This is a map from AccountIds to u32s.

Choosing a Hasher

Although the syntax above is complex, most of it should be straightforward if you've understood the recipe on storage values. The last unfamiliar piece of writing a storage map is choosing which hasher to use. In general you should choose one of the three following hashers. The choice of hasher will affect the performance and security of your chain. If you don't want to think much about this, just choose blake2_128_concat and skip to the next section.

blake2_128_concat

This is a cryptographically secure hash function, and is always safe to use. It is reasonably efficient, and will keep your storage tree balanced. You must choose this hasher if users of your chain have the ability to affect the storage keys. In this pallet, the keys are AccountIds. At first it may seem that the user doesn't affect the AccountId, but in reality a malicious user can generate thousands of accounts and use the one that will affect the chain's storage tree in the way the attacker likes. For this reason, we have chosen to use the blake2_128_concat hasher.

twox_64_concat

This hasher is not cryptographically secure, but is more efficient than blake2. Thus it represents trading security for performance. You should not use this hasher if chain users can affect the storage keys. However, it is perfectly safe to use this hasher to gain performance in scenarios where the users do not control the keys. For example, if the keys in your map are sequentially increasing indices and users cannot cause the indices to rapidly increase, then this is a perfectly reasonable choice.

identity

The identity "hasher" is really not a hasher at all, but merely an identity function that returns the same value it receives. This hasher is only an option when the key type in your storage map is already a hash, and is not controllable by the user. If you're in doubt whether the user can influence the key just use blake2.

The Storage Map API

This pallet demonstrated some of the most common methods available in a storage map including insert, get, take, and contains_key.

// Insert
<SimpleMap<T>>::insert(&user, entry);

// Get
let entry = <SimpleMap<T>>::get(account);

// Take
let entry = <SimpleMap<T>>::take(&user);

// Contains Key
<SimpleMap<T>>::contains_key(&user)

The rest of the API is documented in the rustdocs on the StorageMap trait. You do not need to explicitly use this trait because the decl_storage! macro will do it for you if you use a storage map.