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Introduction

As mentioned earlier, Qubic smart contracts run directly on bare metal—no virtual machine involved. But how does it actually work? Let’s explore.

How It Works​

In Qubic, a smart contract is simply a C++ class with methods. The state of your contract is stored in the members of the smart contract class instance.

Functions and Procedures​

  • Procedure: If a method modifies the members of the smart contract instance, it’s called a Procedure.
  • Function: If a method only reads member variables without modifying them, it’s called a Function.

Interacting with Smart Contracts in Qubic​

  • Function: Invoked via TCP messages. You send a message to a node requesting it to call a specific function, and the node immediately returns the response.
  • Procedure: Invoked via transactions. Since it modifies the contract state, all nodes must execute it and update the state. The transaction specifies the contract address, the procedure to call, and its parameters (encoded in inputHex).