Web3 Library Javascript - getAccounts vs accounts.wallet[0]

Question

I have the following code:

const web3 = new Web3(window.ethereum);

console.log('Accounts:', await web3.eth.getAccounts()); 

console.log('Wallet Account:', web3.eth.accounts.wallet[0]);

This returns me 2 different things. The first one, returns me "Accounts: 0xEF..42a3", which is my wallet address, while the other one returns me "undefined"

Why are these two ways so different if they apply to the same area?

Answer 1

The documentation for web3.eth.getAccounts() reads as follows:

Returns a list of accounts the node controls.

Returns:

Promise returns Array - An array of addresses controlled by node.

While the documentation for web3.eth.accounts reads as follows:

The web3.eth.accounts [object] contains functions to generate Ethereum accounts and sign transactions and data.

So, they do not refer to the same thing, and web.eth.getAccounts() is what you are looking for . web3.eth.getAccounts() returns an array of accounts, but web.eth.accounts is an object full of functions do general operations.

You might have been confused that web.eth.accounts.wallet[0] returns undefined instead of an error. This is just a weird JS thing. In JS, arrays are actually objects with numerical keys. So, wallet[0] actually means "get the value for the key 0 from the object wallet ". Because wallet is an object, no error is returned. However, wallet has no key 0 , so undefined is returned.