# Tracking State
In this chapter, we'll learn how to keep track of some state inside our ExEx.
Let's continue with our Hello World example from the [previous chapter](./hello-world.md).
### Turning ExEx into a struct
First, we need to turn our ExEx into a stateful struct.
Before, we had just an async function, but now we'll need to implement
the [`Future`](https://doc.rust-lang.org/std/future/trait.Future.html) trait manually.
Having a stateful async function is also possible, but it makes testing harder,
because you can't access variables inside the function to assert the state of your ExEx.
```rust,norun,noplayground,ignore
use std::{
future::Future,
pin::Pin,
task::{ready, Context, Poll},
};
use reth::api::FullNodeComponents;
use reth_exex::{ExExContext, ExExEvent, ExExNotification};
use reth_node_ethereum::EthereumNode;
use reth_tracing::tracing::info;
struct MyExEx {
ctx: ExExContext,
}
impl Future for MyExEx {
type Output = eyre::Result<()>;
fn poll(self: Pin<&mut Self>, cx: &mut Context<'_>) -> Poll {
let this = self.get_mut();
while let Some(notification) = ready!(this.ctx.notifications.poll_recv(cx)) {
match ¬ification {
ExExNotification::ChainCommitted { new } => {
info!(committed_chain = ?new.range(), "Received commit");
}
ExExNotification::ChainReorged { old, new } => {
info!(from_chain = ?old.range(), to_chain = ?new.range(), "Received reorg");
}
ExExNotification::ChainReverted { old } => {
info!(reverted_chain = ?old.range(), "Received revert");
}
};
if let Some(committed_chain) = notification.committed_chain() {
this.ctx
.events
.send(ExExEvent::FinishedHeight(committed_chain.tip().number))?;
}
}
Poll::Ready(Ok(()))
}
}
fn main() -> eyre::Result<()> {
reth::cli::Cli::parse_args().run(|builder, _| async move {
let handle = builder
.node(EthereumNode::default())
.install_exex("my-exex", |ctx| async move { Ok(MyExEx { ctx }) })
.launch()
.await?;
handle.wait_for_node_exit().await
})
}
```
For those who are not familiar with how async Rust works on a lower level, that may seem scary,
but let's unpack what's going on here:
1. Our ExEx is now a `struct` that contains the context and implements the `Future` trait. It's now pollable (hence `await`-able).
1. We can't use `self` directly inside our `poll` method, and instead need to acquire a mutable reference to the data inside of the `Pin`.
Read more about pinning in [the book](https://rust-lang.github.io/async-book/04_pinning/01_chapter.html).
1. We also can't use `await` directly inside `poll`, and instead need to poll futures manually.
We wrap the call to `poll_recv(cx)` into a [`ready!`](https://doc.rust-lang.org/std/task/macro.ready.html) macro,
so that if the channel of notifications has no value ready, we will instantly return `Poll::Pending` from our Future.
1. We initialize and return the `MyExEx` struct directly in the `install_exex` method, because it's a Future.
With all that done, we're now free to add more fields to our `MyExEx` struct, and track some state in them.
### Adding state
Our ExEx will count the number of transactions in each block and log it to the console.
```rust,norun,noplayground,ignore
use std::{
future::Future,
pin::Pin,
task::{ready, Context, Poll},
};
use reth::{api::FullNodeComponents, primitives::BlockNumber};
use reth_exex::{ExExContext, ExExEvent};
use reth_node_ethereum::EthereumNode;
use reth_tracing::tracing::info;
struct MyExEx {
ctx: ExExContext,
/// First block that was committed since the start of the ExEx.
first_block: Option,
/// Total number of transactions committed.
transactions: u64,
}
impl MyExEx {
fn new(ctx: ExExContext) -> Self {
Self {
ctx,
first_block: None,
transactions: 0,
}
}
}
impl Future for MyExEx {
type Output = eyre::Result<()>;
fn poll(self: Pin<&mut Self>, cx: &mut Context<'_>) -> Poll {
let this = self.get_mut();
while let Some(notification) = ready!(this.ctx.notifications.poll_recv(cx)) {
if let Some(reverted_chain) = notification.reverted_chain() {
this.transactions = this.transactions.saturating_sub(
reverted_chain
.blocks_iter()
.map(|b| b.body.len() as u64)
.sum(),
);
}
if let Some(committed_chain) = notification.committed_chain() {
this.first_block.get_or_insert(committed_chain.first().number);
this.transactions += committed_chain
.blocks_iter()
.map(|b| b.body.len() as u64)
.sum::();
this.ctx
.events
.send(ExExEvent::FinishedHeight(committed_chain.tip().number))?;
}
if let Some(first_block) = this.first_block {
info!(%first_block, transactions = %this.transactions, "Total number of transactions");
}
}
Poll::Ready(Ok(()))
}
}
fn main() -> eyre::Result<()> {
reth::cli::Cli::parse_args().run(|builder, _| async move {
let handle = builder
.node(EthereumNode::default())
.install_exex("my-exex", |ctx| async move { Ok(MyExEx::new(ctx)) })
.launch()
.await?;
handle.wait_for_node_exit().await
})
}
```
As you can see, we added two fields to our ExEx struct:
- `first_block` to keep track of the first block that was committed since the start of the ExEx.
- `transactions` to keep track of the total number of transactions committed, accounting for reorgs and reverts.
We also changed our `match` block to two `if` clauses:
- First one checks if there's a reverted chain using `notification.reverted_chain()`. If there is:
- We subtract the number of transactions in the reverted chain from the total number of transactions.
- It's important to do the `saturating_sub` here, because if we just started our node and
instantly received a reorg, our `transactions` field will still be zero.
- Second one checks if there's a committed chain using `notification.committed_chain()`. If there is:
- We update the `first_block` field to the first block of the committed chain.
- We add the number of transactions in the committed chain to the total number of transactions.
- We send a `FinishedHeight` event back to the main node.
Finally, on every notification, we log the total number of transactions and
the first block that was committed since the start of the ExEx.