Support for Reference Types - The wasm-bindgen Guide (original) (raw)

1. Introduction
2. 1. Examples
3. 1. 1.1. Hello, World!
   2. 1.2. Using console.log
   3. 1.3. Small Wasm files
   4. 1.4. Without a Bundler
   5. 1.5. Synchronous Instantiation
   6. 1.6. Importing functions from JS
   7. 1.7. Working with char
   8. 1.8. js-sys: WebAssembly in WebAssembly
   9. 1.9. web-sys: DOM hello world
   10. 1.10. web-sys: Closures
   11. 1.11. web-sys: performance.now
   12. 1.12. web-sys: using fetch
   13. 1.13. web-sys: Weather report
   14. 1.14. web-sys: canvas hello world
   15. 1.15. web-sys: canvas Julia set
   16. 1.16. web-sys: WebAudio
   17. 1.17. web-sys: WebGL
   18. 1.18. web-sys: WebSockets
   19. 1.19. web-sys: WebRTC DataChannel
   20. 1.20. web-sys: requestAnimationFrame
   21. 1.21. web-sys: A Simple Paint Program
   22. 1.22. web-sys: Wasm in Web Worker
   23. 1.23. Parallel Raytracing
   24. 1.24. Wasm Audio Worklet
   25. 1.25. web-sys: A TODO MVC App
4. 2. Reference
5. 1. 2.1. Deployment
   2. 2.2. JS snippets
   3. 2.3. Static JS Objects
   4. 2.4. Passing Rust Closures to JS
   5. 2.5. Receiving JS Closures in Rust
   6. 2.6. Promises and Futures
   7. 2.7. Iterating over JS Values
   8. 2.8. Arbitrary Data with Serde
   9. 2.9. Accessing Properties of Untyped JS Values
   10. 2.10. Working with Duck-Typed Interfaces
   11. 2.11. Command Line Interface
   12. 2.12. Optimizing for Size
   13. 2.13. Supported Rust Targets
   14. 2.14. Supported Browsers
   15. 2.15. Support for Weak References
   16. 2.16. Support for Reference Types
   17. 2.17. Supported Types
   18. 1. 2.17.1. Imported JavaScript Types
       2. 2.17.2. Exported Rust Types
       3. 2.17.3. JsValue
       4. 2.17.4. Box<[T]> and Vec
       5. 2.17.5. *const T and *mut T
       6. 2.17.6. NonNull
       7. 2.17.7. Numbers
       8. 2.17.8. bool
       9. 2.17.9. char
       10. 2.17.10. str
       11. 2.17.11. String
       12. 2.17.12. Number Slices
       13. 2.17.13. Boxed Number Slices
       14. 2.17.14. Result<T, E>
   19. 2.18. #[wasm_bindgen] Attributes
   20. 1. 2.18.1. On JavaScript Imports
       2. 1. 2.18.1.1. catch
             1. 2.18.1.2. constructor
             2. 2.18.1.3. extends
             3. 2.18.1.4. getter and setter
             4. 2.18.1.5. final
             5. 2.18.1.6. indexing_getter, indexing_setter, and indexing_deleter
             6. 2.18.1.7. js_class = "Blah"
             7. 2.18.1.8. js_name
             8. 2.18.1.9. js_namespace
             9. 2.18.1.10. method
             10. 2.18.1.11. module = "blah"
             11. 2.18.1.12. raw_module = "blah"
             12. 2.18.1.13. no_deref
             13. 2.18.1.14. static_method_of = Blah
             14. 2.18.1.15. structural
             15. 2.18.1.16. typescript_type
             16. 2.18.1.17. variadic
             17. 2.18.1.18. vendor_prefix
       3. 2.18.2. On Rust Exports
       4. 1. 2.18.2.1. constructor
             1. 2.18.2.2. js_name = Blah
             2. 2.18.2.3. js_class = Blah
             3. 2.18.2.4. readonly
             4. 2.18.2.5. skip
             5. 2.18.2.6. skip_jsdoc
             6. 2.18.2.7. start
             7. 2.18.2.8. main
             8. 2.18.2.9. typescript_custom_section
             9. 2.18.2.10. getter and setter
             10. 2.18.2.11. inspectable
             11. 2.18.2.12. skip_typescript
             12. 2.18.2.13. getter_with_clone
             13. 2.18.2.14. unchecked_return_type and unchecked_param_type
             14. 2.18.2.15. return_description and param_description
6. 3. web-sys
7. 1. 3.1. Using web-sys
   2. 3.2. Cargo Features
   3. 3.3. Function Overloads
   4. 3.4. Type Translations
   5. 3.5. Inheritance
   6. 3.6. Unstable APIs
8. 4. Testing with wasm-bindgen-test
9. 1. 4.1. Usage
   2. 4.2. Writing Asynchronous Tests
   3. 4.3. Testing in Headless Browsers
   4. 4.4. Continuous Integration
   5. 4.5. Coverage (Experimental)
10. 5. Contributing to wasm-bindgen
11. 1. 5.1. Testing
12. 5.2. Internal Design
13. 1. 5.2.1. JS Objects in Rust
       1. 5.2.2. Exporting a function to JS
       2. 5.2.3. Exporting a struct to JS
       3. 5.2.4. Importing a function from JS
       4. 5.2.5. Importing a class from JS
       5. 5.2.6. Rust Type conversions
       6. 5.2.7. Types in wasm-bindgen
14. 5.3. js-sys
15. 1. 5.3.1. Testing
       1. 5.3.2. Adding More APIs
16. 5.4. web-sys
17. 1. 5.4.1. Overview
       1. 5.4.2. Testing
       2. 5.4.3. Logging
       3. 5.4.4. Supporting More Web APIs
18. 5.5. Publishing
19. 5.6. Team

This documentation isno longer maintained at this domain, and is now maintained at wasm-bindgen.github.io instead.

The `wasm-bindgen` Guide

Support for Reference Types

WebAssembly recently has gained support for a new value type called externref. Proposed in the WebAssembly reference types repo this feature of WebAssembly is hoped to enable more efficient communication between the host (JS) and the Wasm module. This feature removes the need for much of the JS glue generated by wasm-bindgen because it can natively call APIs with JS values.

For example, this Rust function:

# #![allow(unused_variables)]
#fn main() {
#[wasm_bindgen]
pub fn takes_js_value(a: &JsValue) {
    // ...
}
#}

generates this JS glue without reference types support:

const heap = new Array(32).fill(undefined);

heap.push(undefined, null, true, false);

let stack_pointer = 32;

function addBorrowedObject(obj) {
    if (stack_pointer == 1) throw new Error('out of js stack');
    heap[--stack_pointer] = obj;
    return stack_pointer;
}

export function takes_js_value(a) {
    try {
        wasm.takes_js_value(addBorrowedObject(a));
    } finally {
        heap[stack_pointer++] = undefined;
    }
}

We can see here how under the hood the JS is managing a table of JS values which are passed to the Wasm binary, so Wasm actually only works in indices. If we compile with -Ctarget-feature=+reference-types (by default since Rust v1.82), however, the generated JS looks like:

export function takes_js_value(a) {
    wasm.takes_js_value(a);
}

And that's it! The WebAssembly binary takes the JS value directly and manages it internally.

Currently this feature is supported in Firefox 79+ and Chrome. Support in other browsers is likely coming soon! In Node.js this feature is behind the--experimental-wasm-anyref flag, although the support does not currently align with the upstream specification as of 14.6.0.