How can we make comparisons using clock.unix_timestamps and the time provided by the instructions arguments?

Question

As you can see below I am trying to place a requirement to make sure a Poll as started and not finished so we can initiate a candidate (had a candidate to a poll).

The problem is that the comparison is not working and I am getting the error triggered when it shouldn't.

I suspect it must be something with Anchor Serialization or some mismatching types in TS.

This is the code:

//Instructions
pub fn initialize_candidate(
  context: Context<InitializeCandidate>, 
  candidate_name: String,
  poll_id: u64,
) -> Result<()> {
  let candidate = &mut context.accounts.candidate;
  let poll = &mut context.accounts.poll;
  let clock = Clock::get()?;

  //-------  Trying to debug ----------
  msg!("poll_start: {}", poll.poll_start as i64);
  msg!("clock.unix_timestamp: {}", clock.unix_timestamp);
  msg!("Poll start < clock.unix_timestamp: {}", poll.poll_start as i64 > clock.unix_timestamp);
  msg!("poll_end: {}", poll.poll_end as i64);
  msg!("Poll end < clock.unix_timestamp: {}", poll.poll_end as i64 <= clock.unix_timestamp);
  //----------------------------------

  require!(poll.poll_owner == *context.accounts.signer.key, ErrorCode::Unauthorized);
  require!(poll.poll_end as i64 <= clock.unix_timestamp, ErrorCode::PollEnded);
  require!(poll.poll_start as i64 > clock.unix_timestamp, ErrorCode::PollNotStarted);
  require!(poll.candidate_amount + 1 <= 10, ErrorCode::TooManyCandidates);
  

  candidate.candidate_name = candidate_name;
  candidate.candidate_votes = 0;

  poll.candidate_amount += 1;

  msg!("You have initialized a candidate called and added them to the poll");
  Ok(())
}

Test from the test file:

it('Initialize and add Candidates to the pool', async () => {
    //call the initialize candidate instruction to add candidates to the poll

    try {
      await program.methods
        .initializeCandidate('Yes, easy!', new anchor.BN(1))
        .rpc();
    } catch (e) {
      // Log the full error for debugging
      console.log(`Error details: ${e.message}. Now the full log here:`, e);
      assert.fail(
        'Poll did not initialize successfully. Check the error message for more details'
      );
    }

    try {
      await program.methods
        .initializeCandidate('No, never!', new anchor.BN(1))
        .rpc();
    } catch (e) {
      // Log the full error for debugging
      console.log(`Error details: ${e.message}. Now the full log here:`, e);
      assert.fail(
        'Poll did not initialize successfully. Check the error message for more details'
      );
    }

    //Get the address of the poll
    const [yesAddress] = PublicKey.findProgramAddressSync(
      [
        new anchor.BN(1).toArrayLike(Buffer, 'le', 8),
        Buffer.from('Yes, easy!'),
      ],
      programId
    );

    const [noAddress] = PublicKey.findProgramAddressSync(
      [
        new anchor.BN(1).toArrayLike(Buffer, 'le', 8),
        Buffer.from('No, never!'),
      ],
      programId
    );

    //Fetch the candidates
    const yesCandidate = await program.account.candidate.fetch(yesAddress);
    const noCandidate = await program.account.candidate.fetch(noAddress);

    //lets confirm the candidates added to the pool have been initialized and have 0 votes
    assert.equal(yesCandidate.candidateVotes.toNumber(), 0);
    assert.equal(noCandidate.candidateVotes.toNumber(), 0);
  });

These are the logs:

   1) Initialize and add Candidates to the pool
Error details: AnchorError thrown in programs/voting-dapp/src/instructions/initialize_candidate.rs:48. Error Code: PollEnded. Error Number: 6003. Error Message: Unable to initialize a new candidat. Poll has already ended.. Now the full log here: AnchorError: AnchorError thrown in programs/voting-dapp/src/instructions/initialize_candidate.rs:48. Error Code: PollEnded. Error Number: 6003. Error Message: Unable to initialize a new candidat. Poll has already ended.
    at Function.parse (/Users/josesantos/Desktop/Jose/School Of Solana/program-Jars1987-1/anchor_project/voting-dapp/node_modules/@coral-xyz/anchor/src/error.ts:152:14)
    at translateError (/Users/josesantos/Desktop/Jose/School Of Solana/program-Jars1987-1/anchor_project/voting-dapp/node_modules/@coral-xyz/anchor/src/error.ts:277:35)
    at MethodsBuilder.rpc [as _rpcFn] (/Users/josesantos/Desktop/Jose/School Of Solana/program-Jars1987-1/anchor_project/voting-dapp/node_modules/@coral-xyz/anchor/src/program/namespace/rpc.ts:35:29)
    at processTicksAndRejections (node:internal/process/task_queues:95:5) {
  errorLogs: [
    'Program log: AnchorError thrown in programs/voting-dapp/src/instructions/initialize_candidate.rs:48. Error Code: PollEnded. Error Number: 6003. Error Message: Unable to initialize a new candidat. Poll has already ended.'
  ],
  logs: [
    'Program 5TkN5PsZXQaznE4FqkpgtDzj8D5PQvJHctnNc4hShTDV invoke [1]',
    'Program log: Instruction: InitializeCandidate',
    'Program 11111111111111111111111111111111 invoke [2]',
    'Program 11111111111111111111111111111111 success',
    'Program log: poll_start: 1731946140',
    'Program log: clock.unix_timestamp: 1731966934',
    'Program log: Poll start < clock.unix_timestamp: false',
    'Program log: poll_end: 1735689599',
    'Program log: Poll end < clock.unix_timestamp: false',
    'Program log: AnchorError thrown in programs/voting-dapp/src/instructions/initialize_candidate.rs:48. Error Code: PollEnded. Error Number: 6003. Error Message: Unable to initialize a new candidat. Poll has already ended.',
    'Program 5TkN5PsZXQaznE4FqkpgtDzj8D5PQvJHctnNc4hShTDV consumed 19328 of 200000 compute units',
    'Program 5TkN5PsZXQaznE4FqkpgtDzj8D5PQvJHctnNc4hShTDV failed: custom program error: 0x1773'
  ],
  error: {
    errorCode: { code: 'PollEnded', number: 6003 },
    errorMessage: 'Unable to initialize a new candidat. Poll has already ended',
    comparedValues: undefined,
    origin: {
      file: 'programs/voting-dapp/src/instructions/initialize_candidate.rs',
      line: 48
    }
  },
  _programErrorStack: ProgramErrorStack {
    stack: [
      [PublicKey [PublicKey(5TkN5PsZXQaznE4FqkpgtDzj8D5PQvJHctnNc4hShTDV)]]
    ]
  }
}

How do I fix this?

Answer 1

It looks like your logic on checking for poll start might be backwards. Try flipping the check:

  require!(poll.poll_start as i64 < clock.unix_timestamp, ErrorCode::PollNotStarted);

Assuming that the poll is started with the current timestamp with some other instruction. By convention, you might also want to check that poll_start isn't equal to 0 or some other default initialization value.