return address.balance returns strange value

[danfinlay]

Originally opened at remix
Then at MetaMask
Then here at Geth (but I think mis-represented, so prematurely closed).

Solidity:

pragma solidity ^0.4.11;

contract Test {
  function balanceOfEther(address user) public constant returns (uint256) { return user.balance; } 
}

Returns unusual balances when requested from Geth via an eth_call.

For any address, returns:

{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":570283474,"result":"0xfffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffdeb17cb73b0ffff"}

[radek1st]

I've hit the exactly same issue on Rinkeby for balance of normal accounts. I also noticed that for deployed contracts balance returns the correct value.

[holiman]

We've discussed this; the better solution is to make gasPrice zero instead of putting an arbitrarily large lump of money on the sender.

[holiman]

EDIT: yes, we set the balance in

func (b *EthAPIBackend) GetEVM(ctx context.Context, msg core.Message, state *state.StateDB, header *types.Header) (*vm.EVM, func() error, error) {
	state.SetBalance(msg.From(), math.MaxBig256)
	vmError := func() error { return nil }

This is just plain wrong, we don't even check if it already has a balance (which can be set via overrides)