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Recommend Ethers.Signature over the EOA-only verification helpers #268

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Merged
alisinabh merged 1 commit into from
Jul 19, 2026
Merged

Recommend Ethers.Signature over the EOA-only verification helpers #268

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9 changes: 6 additions & 3 deletions lib/ethers/personal_message.ex
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Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -24,8 +24,10 @@ defmodule Ethers.PersonalMessage do

Recovery and verification here are `ecrecover`-based and therefore work for
externally-owned accounts (EOAs) only. Signatures from smart-contract wallets
(ERC-1271/ERC-6492) cannot be verified this way and need the RPC-backed
`Ethers.Signature` module.
(ERC-1271/ERC-6492) always fail these checks. Prefer
`Ethers.Signature.verify_message/4`, which verifies EOA and smart-contract wallet
signatures alike; use the functions here when you specifically need a pure, RPC-free
check for signatures known to come from EOA keys.
"""

alias Ethers.ExecutionError
Expand Down Expand Up @@ -97,7 +99,8 @@ defmodule Ethers.PersonalMessage do
comparison is done on the decoded 20-byte addresses, so checksum/case differences are
ignored. Returns `false` (does not raise) when the signature is malformed.

EOA-only — for smart-contract wallets use the RPC-backed `Ethers.Signature` module.
EOA-only — prefer `Ethers.Signature.verify_message/4` to also support smart-contract
wallets (see "Verification scope" in the module docs).

## Examples

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8 changes: 8 additions & 0 deletions lib/ethers/typed_data.ex
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Expand Up @@ -352,6 +352,9 @@ defmodule Ethers.TypedData do
`signature` may be given as a `0x`-prefixed hex string (130 hex chars) or a raw 65-byte binary
(`r ‖ s ‖ v`).

Recovery is `ecrecover`-based and therefore works for externally-owned accounts (EOAs)
only — smart-contract wallets (ERC-1271/ERC-6492) do not have a recoverable signer.

## Returns

- a checksummed `0x` address string on success.
Expand Down Expand Up @@ -389,6 +392,11 @@ defmodule Ethers.TypedData do

`signature` may be a `0x`-prefixed hex string or a raw 65-byte binary.

EOA-only — signatures from smart-contract wallets (ERC-1271/ERC-6492) always fail this
check. Prefer `Ethers.Signature.verify_typed_data/4`, which verifies EOA and
smart-contract wallet signatures alike; use this function when you specifically need a
pure, RPC-free check for signatures known to come from EOA keys.

## Examples

```elixir
Expand Down
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