4 ms·

I thought wasm was going to have a human-readable equivalent, called wast. See: https://webassembly.org/getting-started/advanced-tools/ https://webassembly.org

by trgv 8y ago

I thought wasm was going to have a human-readable equivalent, called wast. See: https://webassembly.org/getting-started/advanced-tools/ https://webassembly.org/getting-started/advanced-tools/ My understanding (maybe wrong) was that this was going to be available in the browser.

err4nt 8y ago
I'm not an expert, but my understanding is that WASM has two formats: a text-based format called WAT, and a binary format called WASM. In order to run the code in the browser, the code will have to be compiled to the binary format. So where WAT comes in is your methods for producing WASM files now become one of the following: Source in <otherlang> -> WAT -> WASM Source in <otherlang> -> WASM WAT -> WASM So the human-readable WAT can either be used as a compile target for another language, which can easily be compiled into WASM, or you can write the WAT manually and compile it. Alternatively other languages might be able to compile directly to the binary format, skipping WAT representation entirely.
- steveklabnik 8y ago
  Generally, WAT is produced from the binary format. Compilers don't go through WAT; they produce the binary output directly. The translation between WAT and the binary format is lossless, so there's no advantage of producing WAT as an intermediate step.
  - err4nt 8y ago
    Since WAT -> WASM is already easy to do, compiling <otherlanguage> to WAT makes it really easy for people to create their own abstractions for writing WebAssembly in nearly _any_ other programming language, not just those that can compile directly to the binary format.
    - steveklabnik 8y ago
      I don't understand why that would be true. It's also just as easy to get WASM from WAT as it is WAT from WASM. I don't know of any languages that compile to WAT and then compile to WASM; as far as I know 100% of languages compile directly to WASM.
sp332 8y ago
It's only human-readable like disassembling a binary into assembly code. https://webassembly.github.io/spec/core/text/index.html https://webassembly.github.io/spec/core/text/index.html Whether you can make heads or tails of the code in that format depends on how friendly the compiler was that produced the binary.

by trgv 8y ago

err4nt 8y ago

I'm not an expert, but my understanding is that WASM has two formats: a text-based format called WAT, and a binary format called WASM. In order to run the code in the browser, the code will have to be compiled to the binary format. So where WAT comes in is your methods for producing WASM files now become one of the following: Source in <otherlang> -> WAT -> WASM Source in <otherlang> -> WASM WAT -> WASM So the human-readable WAT can either be used as a compile target for another language, which can easily be compiled into WASM, or you can write the WAT manually and compile it. Alternatively other languages might be able to compile directly to the binary format, skipping WAT representation entirely.

steveklabnik 8y ago
Generally, WAT is produced from the binary format. Compilers don't go through WAT; they produce the binary output directly. The translation between WAT and the binary format is lossless, so there's no advantage of producing WAT as an intermediate step.
- err4nt 8y ago
  Since WAT -> WASM is already easy to do, compiling <otherlanguage> to WAT makes it really easy for people to create their own abstractions for writing WebAssembly in nearly _any_ other programming language, not just those that can compile directly to the binary format.
  - steveklabnik 8y ago
    I don't understand why that would be true. It's also just as easy to get WASM from WAT as it is WAT from WASM. I don't know of any languages that compile to WAT and then compile to WASM; as far as I know 100% of languages compile directly to WASM.

sp332 8y ago

It's only human-readable like disassembling a binary into assembly code. https://webassembly.github.io/spec/core/text/index.html https://webassembly.github.io/spec/core/text/index.html Whether you can make heads or tails of the code in that format depends on how friendly the compiler was that produced the binary.