Function specifications

The functions exposed by the TFHE Solidity library come in various shapes and sizes in order to facilitate developer experience. For example, most binary operators (e.g., add) can take as input any combination of the following types:

• euint8

• euint16

• euint32

Note that in the backend, FHE operations are only defined on same-type operands. Therefore, the TFHE Solidity library will do implicit upcasting if necessary.

Most binary operators are also defined with a mix of ciphertext and plaintext inputs. In this case, operators can take as input operands of the following types

• euint8

• euint16

• euint32

• uint8

• uint16

• uint32

under the condition that the size of the uint operand is at most the size of the euint operand. For example, add(uint8 a, euint8 b) is defined but add(uint16 a, euint16 b) is not. Note that these ciphertext-plaintext operations may take less time to compute than ciphertext-ciphertext operations.

In the backend, FHE operations are only defined on same-type operands. Therefore, the TFHE Solidity library will do implicit upcasting if necessary.

asEuint

The asEuint functions serve three purposes:

1. verify ciphertext bytes and return a valid handle to the calling smart contract;

2. cast a euintX typed ciphertext to a euintY typed ciphertext, where X != Y;

3. trivially encrypt a plaintext value.

The first case is used to process encrypted inputs, e.g. user-provided ciphertexts. Those are generally included in a transaction payload.

The second case is self-explanatory. When X > Y, the most significant bits are dropped. When X < Y, the ciphertext is padded to the left with trivial encryptions of 0.

The third case is used to "encrypt" a public value so that it can be used as a ciphertext. Note that what we call a trivial encryption is not secure in any sense. When trivially encrypting a plaintext value, this value is still visible in the ciphertext bytes. More information about trivial encryption can be found here.

Examples

// first case
function asEuint8(bytes memory ciphertext) internal view returns (euint8)
// second case
function asEuint16(euint8 ciphertext) internal view returns (euint16)
// third case
function asEuint16(uint16 value) internal view returns (euint16)

asEbool

The asEbool functions behave similarly to the asEuint functions, but for encrypted boolean values.

Reencrypt

The reencrypt functions takes as inputs a ciphertext and a public encryption key (namely, a NaCl box).

During reencryption, the ciphertext is decrypted using the network private key (the threshold decryption protocol is in the works). Then, the decrypted result is encrypted under the user-provided public encryption key. The result of this encryption is sent back to the caller as bytes memory.

It is also possible to provide a default value to the reencrypt function. In this case, if the provided ciphertext is not initialized (i.e., if the ciphertext handle is 0), the function will return an encryption of the provided default value.

Examples

// returns the decryption of `ciphertext`, encrypted under `publicKey`.
function reencrypt(euint32 ciphertext, bytes32 publicKey) internal view returns (bytes memory reencrypted)

// if the handle of `ciphertext` is equal to `0`, returns `defaultValue` encrypted under `publicKey`.
// otherwise, returns as above
function reencrypt(euint32 ciphertext, bytes32 publicKey, uint32 defaultValue) internal view returns (bytes memory reencrypted)

NOTE: If one of the following operations is called with an uninitialized ciphertext handle as an operand, this handle will be made to point to a trivial encryption of 0 before the operation is executed.

Arithmetic operations (add, sub, mul)

Performs the operation homomorphically.

Note that division is not currently supported.

Examples

// a + b
function add(euint8 a, euint8 b) internal view returns (euint8)
function add(euint8 a, euint16 b) internal view returns (euint16)
function add(uint32 a, euint32 b) internal view returns (euint32)

Bitwise operations (AND, OR, XOR)

Unlike other binary operations, bitwise operations do not natively accept a mix of ciphertext and plaintext inputs. To ease developer experience, the TFHE library adds function overloads for these operations. Such overloads implicitely do a trivial encryption before actually calling the operation function, as shown in the examples below.

Examples

// a & b
function and(euint8 a, euint8 b) internal view returns (euint8)

// implicit trivial encryption of `b` before calling the operator
function and(euint8 a, uint16 b) internal view returns (euint16)

Bit shift operations (<<, >>)

Shifts the bits of the base two representation of a by b positions.

Examples

// a << b
function shl(euint16 a, euint8 b) internal view returns (euint16)
// a >> b
function shr(euint32 a, euint16 b) internal view returns (euint32)

Comparison operation (eq, ne, ge, gt, le, lt)

Note that in the case of ciphertext-plaintext operations, since our backend only accepts plaintext right operands, calling the operation with a plaintext left operand will actually invert the operand order and call the opposite comparison.

The result of comparison operations is an encrypted boolean (ebool). In the backend, the boolean is represented by an encrypted unsinged integer of bit width 8, but this is abstracted away by the Solidity library.

Examples

// a == b
function eq(euint32 a, euint16 b) internal view returns (ebool)

// actually returns `lt(b, a)`
function gt(uint32 a, euint16 b) internal view returns (ebool)

// actually returns `gt(a, b)`
function gt(euint16 a, uint32 b) internal view returns (ebool)

Multiplexer operator (cmux)

This operator takes three inputs. The first input b is of type ebool and the two others of type euintX. If b is an encryption of true, the first integer parameter is returned. Otherwise, the second integer parameter is returned.

Example

// if (b == true) return val1 else return val2
function cmux(ebool b, euint8 val1, euint8 val2) internal view returns (euint8) {
    return TFHE.cmux(b, val1, val2);
}

min, max

Returns the minimum (resp. maximum) of the two given values.

Examples

// min(a, b)
function min(euint32 a, euint16 b) internal view returns (euint32)

// max(a, b)
function max(uint32 a, euint8 b) internal view returns (euint32)

Unary operators (neg, not)

There are two unary operators: neg (-) and not (!). Note that since we work with unsigned integers, the result of negation is interpreted as the modular opposite. The not operator returns the value obtained after flipping all the bits of the operand.

NOTE: More information about the behavior of these operators can be found at the TFHE-rs docs.