Data Types and Constants

A PyTeal expression has one of the following two data types:

For example, all the transaction arguments (e.g. Arg(0)) are of type TealType.bytes. The first valid round of current transaction (Txn.first_valid()) is typed TealType.uint64.

Integers

Int(n) creates a TealType.uint64 constant, where n >= 0 and n < 2 ** 64.

Bytes

A byte slice is a binary string. There are several ways to encode a byte slice in PyTeal:

UTF-8

Byte slices can be created from UTF-8 encoded strings. For example:

Bytes("hello world")

Base16

Byte slices can be created from a RFC 4648#section-8 base16 encoded binary string, e.g. "0xA21212EF" or "A21212EF". For example:

Bytes("base16", "0xA21212EF")
Bytes("base16", "A21212EF") # "0x" is optional

Base32

Byte slices can be created from a RFC 4648#section-6 base32 encoded binary string with or without padding, e.g. "7Z5PWO2C6LFNQFGHWKSK5H47IQP5OJW2M3HA2QPXTY3WTNP5NU2MHBW27M".

Bytes("base32", "7Z5PWO2C6LFNQFGHWKSK5H47IQP5OJW2M3HA2QPXTY3WTNP5NU2MHBW27M")

Base64

Byte slices can be created from a RFC 4648#section-4 base64 encoded binary string, e.g. "Zm9vYmE=".

Bytes("base64", "Zm9vYmE=")

Type Checking

All PyTeal expressions are type checked at construction time, for example, running the following code triggers a TealTypeError:

Int(0) < Arg(0)

Since < (overloaded Python operator, see Arithmetic Operations for more details) requires both operands of type TealType.uint64, while Arg(0) is of type TealType.bytes.

Conversion

Converting a value to its corresponding value in the other data type is supported by the following two operators:

  • Itob(n): generate a TealType.bytes value from a TealType.uint64 value n

  • Btoi(b): generate a TealType.uint64 value from a TealType.bytes value b

Note: These operations are not meant to convert between human-readable strings and numbers. Itob produces a big-endian 8-byte encoding of an unsigned integer, not a human readable string. For example, Itob(Int(1)) will produce the string "x00x00x00x00x00x00x00x01" not the string "1".