4 ms·

One of my next projects is to create a Tcl package for webassembly that will let other extension authors compile their packages targeting WebAssembly and be abl

One of my next projects is to create a Tcl package for webassembly that will let other extension authors compile their packages targeting WebAssembly and be able to use those compiled binaries on any platform.

JoshTriplett 7y ago
That sounds great! I'd love to hear more about that. Are you looking to support extension of Tcl with WebAssembly, or using Tcl inside WebAssembly? I think wasmtime would likely be a good fit for your use case; you could either use the wasmtime C API, or use Rust to bind to Tcl and to the wasmtime-api Rust crate. I've found it quite easy to embed wasmtime and run a simple WebAssembly module. See https://github.com/bytecodealliance/wasmtime-demos https://github.com/bytecodealliance/wasmtime-demos for some samples of how to do so.
- rkeene2 7y ago
  This is going to be a Tcl extension named "webassembly" that then allows you to load other Tcl extensions that are compiled to WebAssembly. Right now Tcl loads binary extensions using the "load" command, this will load a shared object (.so, .dylib, .shlib, .dll, .a, whatever your OS supports for runtime loading) and call <ExtensionName>_Init. My plan is to create a new command named "webassembly::load" that will open a WebAssembly module and provide ... some way ... to call <ExtensionName>_Init as well as some way for the extension to make calls back the ~200 Tcl API functions and some selected other APIs per platform (Solaris, AIX, FreeBSD, Linux, Windows, macOS, HP-UX, etc). Additionally, a mechanism (probably in the form of an SDK) for Tcl Extension maintainers to compile their extension targeting being loaded by "webassembly::load" with the APIs mentioned above being available. Most Tcl extensions right now are written in C or C++.
  - JoshTriplett 7y ago
    Makes perfect sense. I look forward to seeing your work when it's ready! Please feel free to ask if there's anything we can do to help, or if you run into any areas where the APIs could be easier to use. You may find the witx project (https://github.com/WebAssembly/WASI/tree/master/tools/witx https://github.com/WebAssembly/WASI/tree/master/tools/witx) useful when writing the bindings from WebAssembly to the Tcl APIs.

JoshTriplett 7y ago

That sounds great! I'd love to hear more about that. Are you looking to support extension of Tcl with WebAssembly, or using Tcl inside WebAssembly? I think wasmtime would likely be a good fit for your use case; you could either use the wasmtime C API, or use Rust to bind to Tcl and to the wasmtime-api Rust crate. I've found it quite easy to embed wasmtime and run a simple WebAssembly module. See https://github.com/bytecodealliance/wasmtime-demos https://github.com/bytecodealliance/wasmtime-demos for some samples of how to do so.

rkeene2 7y ago
This is going to be a Tcl extension named "webassembly" that then allows you to load other Tcl extensions that are compiled to WebAssembly. Right now Tcl loads binary extensions using the "load" command, this will load a shared object (.so, .dylib, .shlib, .dll, .a, whatever your OS supports for runtime loading) and call <ExtensionName>_Init. My plan is to create a new command named "webassembly::load" that will open a WebAssembly module and provide ... some way ... to call <ExtensionName>_Init as well as some way for the extension to make calls back the ~200 Tcl API functions and some selected other APIs per platform (Solaris, AIX, FreeBSD, Linux, Windows, macOS, HP-UX, etc). Additionally, a mechanism (probably in the form of an SDK) for Tcl Extension maintainers to compile their extension targeting being loaded by "webassembly::load" with the APIs mentioned above being available. Most Tcl extensions right now are written in C or C++.
- JoshTriplett 7y ago
  Makes perfect sense. I look forward to seeing your work when it's ready! Please feel free to ask if there's anything we can do to help, or if you run into any areas where the APIs could be easier to use. You may find the witx project (https://github.com/WebAssembly/WASI/tree/master/tools/witx https://github.com/WebAssembly/WASI/tree/master/tools/witx) useful when writing the bindings from WebAssembly to the Tcl APIs.