Memory vs. Calldata

This is a short lesson on memory and calldata usage in Solidity. As we know, when we declare reference type variables in Solidity, we specify a storage location for the data. So far, we’ve looked at storage and memory data locations. Now we’ll look at a new one, calldata, in comparison with memory.

What is calldata?

Like memory, calldata is a temporary storage location that’s only used when defining reference type parameters or arguments (strings, arrays, structs, and mappings) for functions in Solidity. This storage is immediately wiped once the function call is completed. Let’s take a look at the code below: