5.9 KiB
[WIP] SimpleSerialiZe (SSZ)
This is a work in progress describing typing, serialization and Merkleization of Ethereum 2.0 objects.
Table of contents
Constants
| Name | Value | Definition |
|---|---|---|
LENGTH_BYTES |
4 |
Number of bytes for the length of variable-length serialized objects. |
MAX_LENGTH |
2**(8 * LENGTH_BYTES) |
Maximum serialization length. |
Types
Primitive types
uintN:N-bit unsigned integer (whereN in [8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256])bool: 1-bit unsigned integer
Composite types
- Container: ordered heterogenous collection of values
- Tuple: ordered fixed-length homogeneous collection of values
- List: ordered variable-length homogenous collection of values
Notation
- Container: key-pair notation
{}, e.g.{'key1': uint64, 'key2': bool} - Tuple: angle-braket notation
[N], e.g.uint64[N] - List: angle-braket notation
[], e.g.uint64[]
Aliases
For convenience we alias:
bytetouint8bytestobyte[]bytesNtobyte[N]bittobool
Serialization
We reccursively define the serialize function which consumes an object o (of the type specified) and returns a byte string []byte.
uintN
assert N in [8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256]
return o.to_bytes(N / 8, 'little')
bool
assert o in (True, False)
return b'\x01' if o is True else b'\x00'
Containers
serialized_elements = [serialize(element) for element in o]
serialized_bytes = reduce(lambda x, y: x + y, serialized_elements)
assert len(serialized_bytes) < MAX_LENGTH
serialized_length = len(serialized_bytes).to_bytes(LENGTH_BYTES, 'little')
return serialized_length + serialized_bytes
Tuples
serialized_elements = [serialize(element) for element in o]
serialized_bytes = reduce(lambda x, y: x + y, serialized_elements)
return serialized_bytes
Lists
serialized_elements = [serialize(element) for element in o]
serialized_bytes = reduce(lambda x, y: x + y, serialized_elements)
assert len(serialized_elements) < MAX_LENGTH
serialized_length = len(serialized_elements).to_bytes(LENGTH_BYTES, 'little')
return serialized_length + serialized_bytes
Deserialization
Given a type, serialization is an injective function from objects of that type to byte strings. That is, deserialization—the inverse function—is well-defined.
Merkleization
We first define helper functions:
pack: Given ordered objects of the same basic type, serialize them, pack them into 32-byte chunks, right-pad the last chunk with zero bytes, and return the chunks.merkleize: Given ordered 32-byte chunks, right-pad them with zero chunks to the closest power of two, Merkleize the chunks, and return the root.mix_in_length: Given a Merkle rootrootand a lengthlength(32-byte little-endian serialization) returnhash(root + length).
Let o be an object. We now define object Merkleization hash_tree_root(o) recursively:
merkleize(pack(o))ifois a basic object or a tuple of basic objectsmix_in_length(merkleize(pack(o)), len(o))ifois a list of basic objectsmerkleize([hash_tree_root(element) for element in o])ifois a tuple of composite objects or a containermix_in_length(merkleize([hash_tree_root(element) for element in o]), len(o))ifois a list of composite objects
Signed containers
Let container be a self-signed container object. The convention is that the signature (e.g. a bytes96 BLS12-381 signature) be the last field of container. Further, the signed message for container is signed_root(container) = hash_tree_root(truncate_last(container)) where truncate_last truncates the last element of container.