Anchor PDAs and Accounts

Summary #

The seeds and bump constraints are used to initialize and validate PDA accounts in Anchor
The init_if_needed constraint is used to conditionally initialize a new account
The realloc constraint is used to reallocate space on an existing account
The close constraint is used to close an account and refund its rent

Lesson #

In this lesson you'll learn how to work with PDAs, reallocate accounts, and close accounts in Anchor.

Recall that Anchor programs separate instruction logic from account validation. Account validation happens in structs that list the accounts needed for an instruction. Each field in the struct represents an account, and you can customize the validation using the #[account(...)] attribute macro.

In addition to validating accounts, some constraints can automate tasks that would otherwise require repetitive code in our instructions. This lesson will cover the seeds, bump, realloc, and close constraints to help you easily handle PDAs, reallocate space, and close accounts.

PDAs with Anchor #

PDAs store data, at addresses specified by the onchain programmer, using a list of seeds, a bump seed, and a program ID.

Anchor provides a convenient way to validate a PDA with the seeds and bump constraints.

#[derive(Accounts)]
struct ExampleAccounts {
  #[account(
    seeds = [b"example_seed"],
    bump
  )]
  pub pda_account: Account<'info, AccountType>,
}

During account validation, Anchor will use the specified seeds to derive a PDA and check if the provided account matches the derived PDA.

When the bump constraint is included without specifying a specific bump, Anchor will use the canonical bump (the first bump that results in a valid PDA, with a value of 255). Typically, you should use the canonical bump.

You can also use other fields from within the struct as seeds, such as the signer's public key.

You can also reference the deserialized instruction data if you add the #[instruction(...)] attribute macro to the struct.

For example, the following example shows a list of accounts that include:

pda_account
user

The pda_account is constrained such that the seeds must be the string "example_seed," the public key of user, and the string passed into the instruction as instruction_data.

#[derive(Accounts)]
#[instruction(instruction_data: String)]
pub struct Example<'info> {
    #[account(
        seeds = [
            b"example_seed",
            user.key().as_ref(),
            instruction_data.as_ref()
        ],
        bump
    )]
    pub pda_account: Account<'info, AccountType>,
    #[account(mut)]
    pub user: Signer<'info>
}

If the pda_account address provided by the client doesn't match the PDA derived using the specified seeds and the canonical bump, then the account validation will fail.

Use PDAs with the `init` constraint #

You can combine the seeds and bump constraints with the init constraint to initialize an account using a PDA.

Recall that the init constraint must be used with the payer and space constraints to specify who pays for the account initialization and how much space to allocate.

Additionally, you need to include system_program to handle the creation and funding of the new account.

#[derive(Accounts)]
pub struct InitializePda<'info> {
    #[account(
        init,
        seeds = [b"example_seed", user.key().as_ref()],
        bump,
        payer = user,
        space = DISCRIMINATOR + Accountype::INIT_SPACE
    )]
    pub pda_account: Account<'info, AccountType>,
    #[account(mut)]
    pub user: Signer<'info>,
    pub system_program: Program<'info, System>,
}
 
#[account]
#[derive(InitSpace)]
pub struct AccountType {
    pub data: u64,
}
 
const DISCRIMINATOR: usize = 8;

When using init for non-PDA accounts, Anchor defaults to setting the owner of the initialized account to be the program currently executing the instruction.

However, when using init in combination with seeds and bump, the owner must be the executing program. This is because initializing an account for the PDA requires a signature that only the executing program can provide. In other words, the signature verification for the initialization of the PDA account would fail if the program ID used to derive the PDA did not match the program ID of the executing program.

Seed inference #

The account list for an instruction can get really long for some programs. To simplify the client-side experience when invoking an Anchor program instruction, we can turn on seed inference.

Seed inference adds information about PDA seeds to the IDL so that Anchor can infer PDA seeds from existing call-site information. In the previous example, the seeds are b"example_seed" and user.key(). The first is static and therefore known, and the second is known because user is the transaction signer.

If you use seed inference when building your program, then as long as you're calling the program using Anchor, you don't need to explicitly derive and pass in the PDA. Instead, the Anchor library will do it for you.

You can turn on seed inference in the Anchor.toml file with seeds = true under [features].

[features]
seeds = true

Use the `#[instruction(...)]` attribute macro #

Let's briefly look at the #[instruction(...)] attribute macro before moving on. When using #[instruction(...)], the instruction data you provide in the list of arguments must match and be in the same order as the instruction arguments. You can omit unused arguments at the end of the list, but you must include all arguments up until the last one you will be using.

For example, imagine an instruction has arguments input_one, input_two, and input_three. If your account constraints need to reference input_one and input_three, you need to list all three arguments in the #[instruction(...)] attribute macro.

However, if your constraints only reference input_one and input_two, you can omit input_three.

pub fn example_instruction(
    ctx: Context<Example>,
    input_one: String,
    input_two: String,
    input_three: String,
) -> Result<()> {
    ...
    Ok(())
}
 
#[derive(Accounts)]
#[instruction(input_one:String, input_two:String)]
pub struct Example<'info> {
    ...
}

Additionally, you will get an error if you list the inputs in the incorrect order:

#[derive(Accounts)]
#[instruction(input_two:String, input_one:String)]
pub struct Example<'info> {
    ...
}

Init-if-needed #

Anchor provides an init_if_needed constraint that can be used to initialize an account if the account has not already been initialized.

This feature is gated behind a feature flag to make sure you are intentional about using it. For security reasons, it's smart to avoid having one instruction branch into multiple logic paths. And as the name suggests, init_if_needed executes one of two possible code paths depending on the state of the account in question.

When using init_if_needed, you need to make sure to properly protect your program against re-initialization attacks. You need to include checks in your code that check that the initialized account cannot be reset to its initial settings after the first time it was initialized.

To use init_if_needed, you must first enable the feature in Cargo.toml.

[dependencies]
anchor-lang = { version = "0.30.1", features = ["init-if-needed"] }

Once you’ve enabled the feature, you can include the constraint in the #[account(…)] attribute macro. The example below demonstrates using the init_if_needed constraint to initialize a new associated token account if one does not already exist.

#[program]
mod example {
    use super::*;
    pub fn initialize(ctx: Context<Initialize>) -> Result<()> {
        Ok(())
    }
}
 
#[derive(Accounts)]
pub struct Initialize<'info> {
    #[account(
        init_if_needed,
        payer = payer,
        associated_token::mint = mint,
        associated_token::authority = payer
    )]
    pub token_account: Account<'info, TokenAccount>,
    pub mint: Account<'info, Mint>,
     #[account(mut)]
    pub payer: Signer<'info>,
    pub system_program: Program<'info, System>,
    pub token_program: Program<'info, Token>,
    pub associated_token_program: Program<'info, AssociatedToken>,
    pub rent: Sysvar<'info, Rent>,
}

When the initialize instruction is invoked in the previous example, Anchor will check if the token_account exists and initialize it if it does not. If it already exists, then the instruction will continue without initializing the account. Just as with the init constraint, you can use init_if_needed in conjunction with seeds and bump if the account is a PDA.

Realloc #

The realloc constraint provides a simple way to reallocate space for existing accounts.

The realloc constraint must be used in combination with the following constraints:

mut - the account must be set as mutable
realloc::payer - the account to subtract or add lamports to depending on whether the reallocation is decreasing or increasing account space
realloc::zero - boolean to specify if new memory should be zero initialized

As with init, you must include system_program as one of the accounts in the account validation struct when using realloc.

Below is an example of reallocating space for an account that stores a data field of type String.

#[derive(Accounts)]
#[instruction(instruction_data: String)]
pub struct ReallocExample<'info> {
    #[account(
        mut,
        seeds = [b"example_seed", user.key().as_ref()],
        bump,
        realloc = DISCRIMINATOR + STRING_SIZE_SPACE + instruction_data.len(),
        realloc::payer = user,
        realloc::zero = false,
    )]
    pub pda_account: Account<'info, AccountType>,
    #[account(mut)]
    pub user: Signer<'info>,
    pub system_program: Program<'info, System>,
}
 
#[account]
#[derive(InitSpace)]
pub struct AccountType {
    pub data: String,
}
 
const DISCRIMINATOR: usize = 8;
const STRING_SIZE_SPACE: usize = 4;

The realloc constraint from the above example can be broken down as follows:

the DISCRIMINATOR is 8
the STRING_SIZE_SPACE is 4 for the space required to store the length of the string. As required by BORSH serialization
instruction_data.len() is the length of the string itself

Info

BORSH stands for Binary Object Representation Serializer for Hashing and is used to efficiently and compactly serialize and deserialize data structures.

If the change in account data length is additive, lamports will be transferred from the realloc::payer to the account to maintain rent exemption. Likewise, if the change is subtractive, lamports will be transferred from the account back to the realloc::payer.

The realloc::zero constraint ensures that any new memory allocated during reallocation is set to zero. This should be set to true if you expect the memory of an account to change size frequently. This way, you clear out any old data that might otherwise remain.

Close #

The close constraint provides a simple and secure way to close an existing account.

The close constraint marks the account as closed at the end of the instruction’s execution by setting its discriminator to a special value called CLOSED_ACCOUNT_DISCRIMINATOR and sends its lamports to a specified account. This special value prevents the account from being reopened because any attempt to reinitialize the account will fail the discriminator check.

The example below uses the close constraint to close the data_account and sends the lamports allocated for rent to the receiver account.

pub fn close(ctx: Context<Close>) -> Result<()> {
    Ok(())
}
 
#[derive(Accounts)]
pub struct Close<'info> {
    #[account(mut, close = receiver)]
    pub data_account: Account<'info, AccountType>,
    #[account(mut)]
    pub receiver: Signer<'info>
}

Lab #

Let’s practice the concepts we’ve gone over in this lesson by creating a Movie Review program using the Anchor framework.

This program will allow users to:

Use a PDA to initialize a new movie review account to store the review
Update the content of an existing movie review account
Close an existing movie review account

Create a new Anchor project #

To begin, let’s create a new project using anchor init.

anchor init anchor-movie-review-program

Next, navigate to the lib.rs file within the programs folder and you should see the following starter code.

use anchor_lang::prelude::*;
 
declare_id!("Fg6PaFpoGXkYsidMpWTK6W2BeZ7FEfcYkg476zPFsLnS");
 
#[program]
pub mod anchor_movie_review_program {
    use super::*;
 
    pub fn initialize(ctx: Context<Initialize>) -> Result<()> {
        Ok(())
    }
}
 
#[derive(Accounts)]
pub struct Initialize {}

Go ahead and remove the initialize instruction and Initialize type.

use anchor_lang::prelude::*;
 
declare_id!("Fg6PaFpoGXkYsidMpWTK6W2BeZ7FEfcYkg476zPFsLnS");
 
#[program]
pub mod anchor_movie_review_program {
    use super::*;
 
}

MovieAccountState #

First, let’s use the #[account] attribute macro to define the MovieAccountState that will represent the data structure of the movie review accounts. As a reminder, the #[account] attribute macro implements various traits that help with serialization and deserialization of the account, set the discriminator for the account, and set the owner of a new account as the program ID defined in the declare_id! macro.

Within each movie review account, we’ll store the:

reviewer - user creating the review
rating - rating for the movie
title - title of the movie
description - content of the review

use anchor_lang::prelude::*;
 
declare_id!("Fg6PaFpoGXkYsidMpWTK6W2BeZ7FEfcYkg476zPFsLnS");
 
#[program]
pub mod anchor_movie_review_program {
    use super::*;
 
}
 
#[account]
#[derive(InitSpace)]
pub struct MovieAccountState {
    pub reviewer: Pubkey,    // 32
    pub rating: u8,          // 1
    #[max_len(20)]
    pub title: String,       // 4 + len()
    #[max_len(50)]
    pub description: String, // 4 + len()
}
 
const DISCRIMINATOR: usize = 8;

Using the #[derive(InitSpace)] macro on the AccountStruct automatically calculates the INIT_SPACE constant which represents the space required for the account fields, including fixed-size fields and the length-prefixed strings.

In cases of dynamic fields like strings, we can use the #[max_len] macro to specify the maximum length of these fields to determining the space needed for the account during initialization. Here, we have chosen the title string to be of length 20 (max), and the description string to be of length 50 (max).

Custom error codes #

During our implementation, we will be doing some checks and throwing some custom errors in case those checks are not successful.

For, that let's go ahead and create an enum that will contain the different type of errors as well as the error messages associated:

#[error_code]
enum MovieReviewError {
    #[msg("Rating must be between 1 and 5")]
    InvalidRating,
    #[msg("Movie Title too long")]
    TitleTooLong,
    #[msg("Movie Description too long")]
    DescriptionTooLong,
}

The #[error_code] macro will generate error types to be used as return types from our instruction handlers.

Don't worry too much about custom errors for now, as they will be covered with more detail in the next chapter.

Add Movie Review #

Next, let’s implement the add_movie_review instruction. The add_movie_review instruction will require a Context of type AddMovieReview that we’ll implement shortly.

The instruction will require three additional arguments as instruction data provided by a reviewer:

title - title of the movie as a String
description - details of the review as a String
rating - rating for the movie as a u8

Within the instruction logic, we’ll populate the data of the new movie_review account with the instruction data. We’ll also set the reviewer field as the initializer account from the instruction context.

We will also perform some checks, using the require! macro, to make sure that:

The rating is between 1 and 5
The title is no longer than 20 characters
The description is no longer than 50 characters

The require! macro will perform a check and throw a custom error in case that check is not successful.

const MIN_RATING: u8 = 1;
const MAX_RATING: u8 = 5;
const MAX_TITLE_LENGTH: usize = 20;
const MAX_DESCRIPTION_LENGTH: usize = 50;
 
#[program]
pub mod anchor_movie_review_program{
    use super::*;
 
    pub fn add_movie_review(
        ctx: Context<AddMovieReview>,
        title: String,
        description: String,
        rating: u8,
    ) -> Result<()> {
	// We require that the rating is between 1 and 5
        require!(rating >= MIN_RATING && rating <= MAX_RATING, MovieReviewError::InvalidRating);
 
        // We require that the title is not longer than 20 characters
        require!(title.len() <= MAX_TITLE_LENGTH, MovieReviewError::TitleTooLong);
 
        // We require that the description is not longer than 50 characters
        require!(description.len() <= MAX_DESCRIPTION_LENGTH, MovieReviewError::DescriptionTooLong);
 
        msg!("Movie Review Account Created");
        msg!("Title: {}", title);
        msg!("Description: {}", description);
        msg!("Rating: {}", rating);
 
        let movie_review = &mut ctx.accounts.movie_review;
        movie_review.reviewer = ctx.accounts.initializer.key();
        movie_review.title = title;
        movie_review.rating = rating;
        movie_review.description = description;
        Ok(())
    }
}

Next, let’s create the AddMovieReview struct that we used as the generic in the instruction's context. This struct will list the accounts the add_movie_review instruction requires.

Remember, you'll need the following macros:

The #[derive(Accounts)] macro is used to deserialize and validate the list of accounts specified within the struct
The #[instruction(...)] attribute macro is used to access the instruction data passed into the instruction
The #[account(...)] attribute macro then specifies additional constraints on the accounts

The movie_review account is a PDA that needs to be initialized, so we'll add the seeds and bump constraints as well as the init constraint with its required payer and space constraints.

For the PDA seeds, we'll use the movie title and the reviewer's public key. The payer for the initialization should be the reviewer, and the space allocated on the account should be enough for the account discriminator, the reviewer's public key, and the movie review's rating, title, and description.

#[derive(Accounts)]
#[instruction(title:String, description:String)]
pub struct AddMovieReview<'info> {
    #[account(
        init,
        seeds = [title.as_bytes(), initializer.key().as_ref()],
        bump,
        payer = initializer,
        space = DISCRIMINATOR + MovieAccountState::INIT_SPACE
    )]
    pub movie_review: Account<'info, MovieAccountState>,
    #[account(mut)]
    pub initializer: Signer<'info>,
    pub system_program: Program<'info, System>,
}

Update Movie Review #

Next, let’s implement the update_movie_review instruction with a context whose generic type is UpdateMovieReview.

Just as before, the instruction will require three additional arguments as instruction data provided by a reviewer:

title - title of the movie
description - details of the review
rating - rating for the movie

Within the instruction logic we’ll update the rating and description stored on the movie_review account.

While the title doesn't get used in the instruction function itself, we'll need it for account validation of movie_review in the next step.

#[program]
pub mod anchor_movie_review_program {
    use super::*;
 
		...
 
    pub fn update_movie_review(
        ctx: Context<UpdateMovieReview>,
        title: String,
        description: String,
        rating: u8,
    ) -> Result<()> {
        msg!("Movie review account space reallocated");
        msg!("Title: {}", title);
        msg!("Description: {}", description);
        msg!("Rating: {}", rating);
 
        let movie_review = &mut ctx.accounts.movie_review;
        movie_review.rating = rating;
        movie_review.description = description;
 
        Ok(())
    }
 
}

Next, let’s create the UpdateMovieReview struct to define the accounts that the update_movie_review instruction needs.

Since the movie_review account will have already been initialized by this point, we no longer need the init constraint. However, since the value of description may now be different, we need to use the realloc constraint to reallocate the space on the account. Accompanying this, we need the mut, realloc::payer, and realloc::zero constraints.

We'll also still need the seeds and bump constraints as we had them in AddMovieReview.

#[derive(Accounts)]
#[instruction(title:String, description:String)]
pub struct UpdateMovieReview<'info> {
    #[account(
        mut,
        seeds = [title.as_bytes(), initializer.key().as_ref()],
        bump,
        realloc = DISCRIMINATOR + MovieAccountState::INIT_SPACE,
        realloc::payer = initializer,
        realloc::zero = true,
    )]
    pub movie_review: Account<'info, MovieAccountState>,
    #[account(mut)]
    pub initializer: Signer<'info>,
    pub system_program: Program<'info, System>,
}

Note that the realloc constraint is set to the new space required by the movie_review account based on the updated value of description.

Additionally, the realloc::payer constraint specifies that any additional lamports required or refunded will come from or be send to the initializer account.

Finally, we set the realloc::zero constraint to true because the movie_review account may be updated multiple times either shrinking or expanding the space allocated to the account.

Delete Movie Review #

Lastly, let’s implement the delete_movie_review instruction to close an existing movie_review account.

We'll use a context whose generic type is DeleteMovieReview and won't include any additional instruction data. Since we are only closing an account, we actually don't need any instruction logic inside the body of the function. The closing itself will be handled by the Anchor constraint in the DeleteMovieReview type.

#[program]
pub mod anchor_movie_review_program {
    use super::*;
 
		...
 
    pub fn delete_movie_review(_ctx: Context<DeleteMovieReview>, title: String) -> Result<()> {
        msg!("Movie review for {} deleted", title);
        Ok(())
    }
 
}

Next, let’s implement the DeleteMovieReview struct.

#[derive(Accounts)]
#[instruction(title: String)]
pub struct DeleteMovieReview<'info> {
    #[account(
        mut,
        seeds=[title.as_bytes(), initializer.key().as_ref()],
        bump,
        close=initializer
    )]
    pub movie_review: Account<'info, MovieAccountState>,
    #[account(mut)]
    pub initializer: Signer<'info>,
    pub system_program: Program<'info, System>
}

Here we use the close constraint to specify we are closing the movie_review account and that the rent should be refunded to the initializer account. We also include the seeds and bump constraints for the movie_review account for validation. Anchor then handles the additional logic required to securely close the account.

Testing #

The program should be good to go! Now let's test it out. Navigate to anchor-movie-review-program.ts and replace the default test code with the following.

Here we:

Create default values for the movie review instruction data
Derive the movie review account PDA
Create placeholders for tests

import * as anchor from "@coral-xyz/anchor";
import { Program } from "@coral-xyz/anchor";
import { expect } from "chai";
import { AnchorMovieReviewProgram } from "../target/types/anchor_movie_review_program";
 
describe("anchor-movie-review-program", () => {
  // Configure the client to use the local cluster.
  const provider = anchor.AnchorProvider.env();
  anchor.setProvider(provider);
 
  const program = anchor.workspace
    .AnchorMovieReviewProgram as Program<AnchorMovieReviewProgram>;
 
  const movie = {
    title: "Just a test movie",
    description: "Wow what a good movie it was real great",
    rating: 5,
  };
 
  const [moviePda] = anchor.web3.PublicKey.findProgramAddressSync(
    [Buffer.from(movie.title), provider.wallet.publicKey.toBuffer()],
    program.programId,
  );
 
  it("Movie review is added`", async () => {});
 
  it("Movie review is updated`", async () => {});
 
  it("Deletes a movie review", async () => {});
});

Next, let's create the first test for the addMovieReview instruction. Note that we don't explicitly add .accounts. This is because the Wallet from AnchorProvider is automatically included as a signer, Anchor can infer certain accounts like SystemProgram, and Anchor can also infer the movieReview PDA from the title instruction argument and the signer's public key.

Info

Don't forget to turn on seed inference with seeds = true in the Anchor.toml file.

Once the instruction runs, we then fetch the movieReview account and check that the data stored on the account match the expected values.

it("Movie review is added`", async () => {
  // Add your test here.
  const tx = await program.methods
    .addMovieReview(movie.title, movie.description, movie.rating)
    .rpc();
 
  const account = await program.account.movieAccountState.fetch(moviePda);
  expect(movie.title === account.title);
  expect(movie.rating === account.rating);
  expect(movie.description === account.description);
  expect(account.reviewer === provider.wallet.publicKey);
});

Next, let's create the test for the updateMovieReview instruction following the same process as before.

it("Movie review is updated`", async () => {
  const newDescription = "Wow this is new";
  const newRating = 4;
 
  const tx = await program.methods
    .updateMovieReview(movie.title, newDescription, newRating)
    .rpc();
 
  const account = await program.account.movieAccountState.fetch(moviePda);
  expect(movie.title === account.title);
  expect(newRating === account.rating);
  expect(newDescription === account.description);
  expect(account.reviewer === provider.wallet.publicKey);
});

Next, create the test for the deleteMovieReview instruction

it("Deletes a movie review", async () => {
  const tx = await program.methods.deleteMovieReview(movie.title).rpc();
});

Lastly, run anchor test and you should see the following output in the console.

  anchor-movie-review-program
    ✔ Movie review is added` (139ms)
    ✔ Movie review is updated` (404ms)
    ✔ Deletes a movie review (403ms)
 
 
  3 passing (950ms)

If you need more time with this project to feel comfortable with these concepts, feel free to have a look at the solution code before continuing.

Challenge #

Now it’s your turn to build something independently. Equipped with the concepts introduced in this lesson, try to recreate the Student Intro program that we've used before using the Anchor framework.

The Student Intro program is a Solana Program that lets students introduce themselves. The program takes a user's name and a short message as the instruction data and creates an account to store the data onchain.

Using what you've learned in this lesson, build out this program. The program should include instructions to:

Initialize a PDA account for each student that stores the student's name and their short message
Update the message on an existing account
Close an existing account

Try to do this independently if you can! But if you get stuck, feel free to reference the solution code.

Completed the lab?

Push your code to GitHub and tell us what you thought of this lesson!