Transferring ERC20 Tokens using web3 Ropsten Infura TestNet

Question

I created a contract token using the sample solidity code tutorial. It has a function called transfer to send tokens between accounts:

function transfer(address _to, uint256 _value)

I need to now connect to this contract using web3, and then send a certain number of tokens generated to another account. I've been struggling with how to do this for quite some time and hoping this community could help. Here is what I have thus far, using web3 version 0.20.0:

const Web3 = require("web3");
const web3 = new Web3();
web3.setProvider(new 
web3.providers.HttpProvider("https://ropsten.infura.io/XXXXXX"));
var abi = [ {} ] // redacted on purpose
var count = web3.eth.getTransactionCount("0x9...");
var abiArray = abi;
var contractAddress = "0x2...";
var contract =  web3.eth.contract(abiArray).at(contractAddress);

var data = contract.transfer.getData("0x2...", 10000, {from: "0x9..."});
var gasPrice = web3.eth.gasPrice;
var gasLimit = 90000;

var rawTransaction = {
  "from": "0x9...",
  "nonce": web3.toHex(count),
  "gasPrice": web3.toHex(gasPrice),
  "gasLimit": web3.toHex(gasLimit),
  "to": "0x2...",
  "value": "0x1",
  "data": data,
  "chainId": 0x03
};

var privKey = new Buffer('XXXXXXXXXXXXXX', 'hex');
var tx = new Tx(rawTransaction);

tx.sign(privKey);
var serializedTx = tx.serialize();

web3.eth.sendRawTransaction('0x' + serializedTx.toString('hex'), function(err, hash) {
  if (!err)
      console.log(hash);
  else
      console.log(err);
});

This transaction works but it's sending ether as opposed to the actual ERC20 token. I'm really at a loss for why this is the case and would appreciate any help whatsoever.

Answer 1

This may be late, but for the future users. The reason you are sending ethers in place of the token, is that in the raw transaction field of value you are inputting "0x1". To send the ERC20 token you should leave it at "0x0".

Answer 2

If you are facing problem in just the ether being sent, make sure you put the value attribute in your raw transaction object as "0x0" and in the to attribute put the smart contract address as shown below :

var rawTransaction = {
  "from": "0x9...",
  "nonce": web3.toHex(count),
  "gasPrice": web3.toHex(gasPrice),
  "gasLimit": web3.toHex(gasLimit),
  "to": "<contract Address>",
  "value": "0x0",
  "data": data,
  "chainId": 0x03
};

If you are still facing problem, read below to see my running version of sending an erc20 Token :

When you are creating the contract instance add the from attribute in the options as below :

var contract = new web3.eth.Contract(erc20ABI, contractAddress, {
  from: '<Address from where you are spending>'
});

Secondly, while creating the data part of raw transaction do it as below :

var data = contract.methods.transfer('<Toaddress>', amount)).encodeABI();

Now you can follow the same steps you did to broadcast transaction to the network.