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Lazy loading, partial loading, partial updating

One magic keyword — lazy — to rule them all.

Lazy loading, partial loading​

Suppose you have a Storage struct in a wallet:

struct Storage {
    isSignatureAllowed: bool
    seqno: uint32
    subwalletId: uint32
    publicKey: uint256
    extensions: dict
}

fun Storage.load() {
    return Storage.fromCell(contract.getData())
}

What does Storage.load() do? It unpacks a cell, populates all struct fields, checks consistency, and so on.

The magic of lazy Storage.load() is that it does not load the entire cell upfront. Instead, the compiler tracks exactly which fields you access and automatically loads only those, skipping the rest.

get fun getPublicKey() {
    val st = lazy Storage.load();
    // <-- here "skip 65 bits, preload uint256" is inserted
    return st.publicKey
}

That’s it! With a single lazy keyword, loading is deferred until the data is accessed. The compiler tracks all control flow paths, inserts loading points as needed, groups unused fields to skip, and performs other optimizations as necessary. Best of all, this works with any type and any combination of fields used anywhere in your code — the compiler tracks everything.

Even deeper than you might think​

Suppose you have an NFT collection:

struct NftCollectionStorage {
    adminAddress: address
    nextItemIndex: uint64
    content: Cell<CollectionContent>
    ...
}

struct CollectionContent {
    metadata: cell
    minIndex: int32
    commonKey: uint256
}

Now, imagine you want to access just the content field from the storage—and then extract commonKey from it:

val storage = lazy NftCollectionStorage.load();
// <-- here just "preload ref" is inserted
val contentCell = storage.content;

First trick: no need to skip address or skip uint64. To get a reference field, the compiler knows exactly where it is and doesn't require skipping preceding data.

Second trick: we have contentCell. How do we get commonKey from it? Since content is a cell, you need to load it… lazily:

val storage = lazy NftCollectionStorage.load();

// <-- "preload ref" inserted — to get `content`
// Cell<T>.load() unpacks a cell and gives you T
val content = lazy storage.content.load();

// <-- "skip 32 bits, preload uint256" - to get commonKey
return content.commonKey;

A quick reminder about Cell<T>: these typed cells are commonly used to represent nested references. When you have p: Cell<Point>, you can't directly access p.x — you need to load the cell first, either with Point.fromCell(p) or, preferably, p.load(). Both can be used with lazy.

Lazy matching​

Similarly, when reading a union type such as an incoming message, you use lazy:

struct (0x12345678) CounterReset { ... }
...
type MyMessage = CounterReset | CounterIncrement | ...

val msg = lazy MyMessage.fromSlice(msgBody);    
match (msg) {
    CounterReset => {
        assert(senderAddress == storage.owner) throw 403;
        // <-- here "load msg.initial" is inserted
        storage.counter = msg.initial;

With lazy applied to unions:

  1. No union is allocated on the stack upfront; matching and loading are deferred until needed.
  2. match operates naturally by inspecting the slice prefix (opcode).
  3. Within each branch, the compiler inserts loading points and skips unused fields — just like it does for structs.

This makes lazy matching highly efficient, outperforming patterns like if (op == OP_RESET) commonly used in FunC. From a type system perspective, it aligns perfectly with the TVM execution model, eliminating unnecessary stack operations.

Lazy matching and else​

Since lazy match for a union is done by inspecting the prefix (opcode), you can handle unmatched cases using an else branch.

In FunC contracts, a common pattern was to ignore empty messages:

// FunC-style
if (msgBody.isEmpty()) {
    return;    // ignore empty messages
}
val op = msgBody.loadUint(32);  // because this would throw excno 9

if (op == OP_RESET) { 
    ...
    return; 
}

throw 0xFFFF;  // "invalid opcode"

The only reason to handle empty messages upfront was to avoid throwing a cell underflow error when calling loadUint.

With lazy match, you no longer need to pay gas upfront for these checks. You can handle all cases in the else branch:

val msg = lazy MyMessage.fromSlice(msgBody);    
match (msg) {
    CounterReset => { ... }
    ...  // handle all types of a union

    // else - when nothing matched;
    // even corrupted input (less than 32 bits), no "underflow" fired
    else => {
        // ignore empty messages, "wrong opcode" for others
        assert (msgBody.isEmpty()) throw 0xFFFF
    }
}

Without an explicit else, unpacking throws error 63 by default, which is controlled by the throwIfOpcodeDoesNotMatch option in fromCell/fromSlice. Adding else allows you to override this behavior.

Note that else in match by type is only allowed with lazy because it matches on prefixes. Without lazy, it's just a regular union, matched by a union tag (typeid) on a stack.

Partial updating​

The magic doesn’t stop at reading. The lazy keyword also works seamlessly when writing data back.

Imagine you load a storage, use its fields for assertions, modify one field, and save it back:

val storage = lazy Storage.load();

assert (storage.validUntil > blockchain.now()) throw 123;
assert (storage.seqno == msg.seqno) throw 456;
...

storage.seqno += 1;
contract.setData(storage.toCell());   // <-- magic

The compiler is smart: when calling toCell(), it does not save all fields of the storage since only seqno was modified. Instead, during loading, after loading seqno, it saved an immutable tail and reuses it when writing back:

val storage = lazy Storage.load();
// actually, what was done:
// - load isSignatureAllowed, seqno
// - save immutable tail
// - load validUntil, etc.

storage.seqno += 1;
storage.toCell();
// actually, what was done:
// - store isSignatureAllowed, seqno
// - store immutable tail

No more manual optimizations using intermediate slices—the compiler handles everything for you. It can even group unmodified fields in the middle, load them as a slice, and preserve that slice on write-back.

This optimization is only effective when the compiler can statically resolve control flow within a local function scope. If you use globals, split logic into non-inlined functions, this optimization will break, and lazy will fall back to regular loading.

Q: What are the disadvantages of lazy?​

In terms of gas usage, lazy fromSlice is always equal to or cheaper than regular fromSlice because, in the worst case—when you access all fields—it loads everything one by one, just like the regular method.

However, there is another difference unrelated to gas consumption:

  • When you do T.fromSlice(s), it unpacks all fields of T and then insertss.assertEnd(), which can be turned off using an option. So, if the slice is corrupted or contains extra data, fromSlice will throw an error.

  • The lazy keyword, of course, selectively picks only the requested fields and handles partially invalid input gracefully. For example, given:

struct Point { x: int8, y: int8 }

If you use lazy Point and access only p.x, then an input of FF (8 bits) is acceptable even though y is missing. Similarly, FFFF0000, which includes 16 bits of extra data, is also fine, as lazy ignores any data that is not requested.

In most cases, this isn’t an issue. For storage, you have guarantees regarding the data shape, as your contract controls it. For incoming messages, you typically use all fields (otherwise, why include them in the struct?). If there is extra data in the input—who cares? The message can still be deserialized correctly, and I don’t see any problem here.

Perhaps someday, lazy will become the default. For now, it remains a distinct keyword highlighting the lazy-loading capability—a killer feature of Tolk.

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