Memo fields have two ways to encode an empty memo:
- 0xF6 followed by all-zeroes, encoding "there is no memo".
- All-zeroes, encoding the empty UTF-8 string.
In almost all cases you want the former, but users thinking about byte
slices may expect MemoBytes::default() to result in the latter. To
ensure clarity, we now require calling either MemoBytes::default() or
MemoBytes::from_bytes(&[]) to be explicit.
No such confusion exists for the Memo enum, because the two types are
visibly separated as different enum cases, and Memo::Empty makes sense
as the default.
The MemoBytes struct is a minimal wrapper around the memo bytes, and only
imposes the existence of null-padding for shorter memos. The only error
case is attempting to construct a memo that is too long. MemoBytes is
guaranteed to be round-trip encodable (modulo null padding).
The Memo enum implements the additional memo rules defined in ZIP 302,
interpreting the contents of a memo (for example, parsing it as text).
We don't need to check if epk is in the prime-order subgroup before we
trial-decrypt, which saves a third of the cost of trial-decrypting
outputs that are not ours.
Kris Nuttycombe
Jack Grigg