'How can I validate a Solana wallet address with web3js?

I'm trying to validate that the input text I get from a user is a valid Solana address.

According to the web3.js documentation, the method .isOnCurve() does that:

https://solana-labs.github.io/solana-web3.js/classes/PublicKey.html#isOnCurve

I've managed to make it work with this code:

import {PublicKey} from '@solana/web3.js'

function validateSolAddress(address:string){
    try {
        let pubkey = new PublicKey(address)
        let  isSolana =  PublicKey.isOnCurve(pubkey.toBuffer())
        return isSolana
    } catch (error) {
        return false
    }
} 

function modalSubmit(modal: any){

  const firstResponse = modal.getTextInputValue(walletQuestFields.modal.componentsList[0].id)
 
  let isSolAddress = validateSolAddress(firstResponse)

  if (isSolAddress) {
    console.log('The address is valid')
  }else{
    console.log('The address is NOT valid')
  }
}

But when I pass let pubkey = new PublicKey(address) a string that is not similar to a solana address, it throws the exception Error: Invalid public key input (PublikKey expects a PublicKeyInitData: number | string | Buffer | Uint8Array | number[] | PublicKeyData)

That is why I had to out it into a try-catch block.

Is there any other (better) way to achieve this? It looks ugly...



Solution 1:[1]

To validate a Solana public key may be a wallet address, you should both use isOnCurve() and the PublicKey constructor like you are doing.

The error thrown makes sense. If the address is not a public key, it should not be able to be instantiated.

Perhaps there could be another function made native to @solana/web3.js that takes care of validating wallet addresses for you in the future.

Solution 2:[2]

I'm trying to do the same (validate a solana wallet address) and works for me.

isOnCurve return true if the public key has a valid format, but I think this is not sufficient for verify a wallet address because I'm tested some public keys from devnet and mainnet-beta and ever return true (without care about the env) unless I used invalid key.

This is a public key from devnet, you can try with this to test:

8B9wLUXGFQQJ6VpzhDMpmHxByAvQBXhwSsZUwjLz971x

My code looks like:

var connection = new web3.Connection(
   web3.clusterApiUrl('devote'),
   'confirmed',
  );

const publicKey = new web3.PublicKey("8B9wLUXGFQQJ6VpzhDMpmHxByAvQBXhwSsZUwjLz971x");

console.log(await web3.PublicKey.isOnCurve(publicKey))

Should print true

Solution 3:[3]

isOnCurve expects a Uint8Array format for publicKey argument. So you must do publicKey.toBytes() to get byte array representation of the publicKey.

 const validateSolanaAddress = async (addr: string) => {
      let publicKey: PublicKey;
      try {
          publicKey = new PublicKey(addr);
          return await PublicKey.isOnCurve(publicKey.toBytes());
        } catch (err) {
          return false;
        }
      };

Solution 4:[4]

You don't have to use Connection only to validate wallet address. A minimum working example should be something like this:

import { PublicKey } from '@solana/web3.js'

const address = new PublicKey("8B9wLUXGFQQJ6VpzhDMpmHxByAvQBXhwSsZUwjLz971x");
console.log(PublicKey.isOnCurve(address));

Sources

This article follows the attribution requirements of Stack Overflow and is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Source: Stack Overflow

Solution Source
Solution 1 Jacob Creech
Solution 2 Vicente Guerra Hernández
Solution 3 Sanjay
Solution 4 Tyler2P