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Ergoscriptvergotree

ErgoScript vs ErgoTree#

ErgoScript is a high-level developer-friendly language for writing smart contracts that are then compiled to ErgoTree before being written to the blockchain.

The Ergo node does not understand ErgoScript. Instead, it uses a low-level language called ErgoTree, which is a "tree" based language (somewhat like XML).

However, writing code in ErgoTree is difficult.

  • ErgoTree is similar to Bitcoin's Script in some aspects.
  • An ErgoTree program is deterministic and consists of a sequence of boolean predicates joined using AND and OR.
  • Ergo nodes execute the ErgoTree program contained in a transaction and consider it valid if it evaluates to true.

An example of such an ErgoTree program would be 

AND(OR(condition_1, condition_2), condition_3)

which implies that the transaction is valid if condition_3 and at least one of condition_1 or condition_2 hold.

The equivalent of the above program in ErgoScript would be 

(condition_1 || condition_2) && condition_3