Intent to Ship: WebAssembly Reference Types

[Andreas Haas]

Contact emails

ah...@chromium.org, ad...@chromium.org, va...@chromium.org

Explainer

https://github.com/WebAssembly/reference-types 

Specification

https://github.com/WebAssembly/reference-types

Summary

Allow WebAssembly modules to hold references to JS/DOM objects, passing them as arguments, storing them in locals and globals, and storing them in WebAssembly.Table objects.

Blink component

Blink>JavaScript>WebAssembly

Search tags

wasm, webassembly, host bindings, anyref

TAG review

Not required for WebAssembly feature launches

TAG review status

Not applicable

Risks

Interoperability and Compatibility

Gecko: Already shipped (https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1444925)

WebAssembly Reference Types are already standardized and part of the core WebAssembly spec

Debuggability

Supported using DevTools

Is this feature fully tested by web-platform-tests?

Yes, tests are provided by the WebAssembly spec.

Flag name

WebAssembly Reference Types can be enabled and disabled by the V8 Flag: --experimental-wasm-reftypes

Requires code in //chrome?

False

Tracking bug

https://bugs.chromium.org/p/v8/issues/detail?id=7581

Launch bug

https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=1155598

Estimated milestones

M95

Link to entry on the Chrome Platform Status

https://chromestatus.com/feature/5166497248837632

This intent message was generated by Chrome Platform Status.

[Yoav Weiss]

On Tuesday, August 24, 2021 at 11:48:49 AM UTC+2 Andreas Haas wrote:

Contact emails

ah...@chromium.org, ad...@chromium.org, va...@chromium.org

Explainer

https://github.com/WebAssembly/reference-types 

Specification

https://github.com/WebAssembly/reference-types

Summary

Allow WebAssembly modules to hold references to JS/DOM objects, passing them as arguments, storing them in locals and globals, and storing them in WebAssembly.Table objects.

Blink component

Blink>JavaScript>WebAssembly

Search tags

wasm, webassembly, host bindings, anyref

TAG review

Not required for WebAssembly feature launches

TAG review status

Not applicable

Risks

Interoperability and Compatibility

Gecko: Already shipped (https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1444925)

Signals from Safari/WebKit? https://bit.ly/blink-signals

 

WebAssembly Reference Types are already standardized and part of the core WebAssembly spec

Any developer signals? I'd imagine developers would be excited about this.

[Andreas Haas]

I am aware of two uses of WebAssembly Reference Types:

For one, wasm-bindgen (Rust's main Wasm toolchain) has an implementation based on reference types that allows them to avoid bunch of custom JS for managing values: https://rustwasm.github.io/docs/wasm-bindgen/reference/reference-types.html

Another example is AssemblyScript which also allows switching to reference types under a flag: https://www.assemblyscript.org/status.html#webassembly-features

[Andreas Haas]

I am aware of two uses of WebAssembly Reference Types:

For one, wasm-bindgen (Rust's main Wasm toolchain) has an implementation based on reference types that allows them to avoid bunch of custom JS for managing values: https://rustwasm.github.io/docs/wasm-bindgen/reference/reference-types.html

Another example is AssemblyScript which also allows switching to reference types under a flag: https://www.assemblyscript.org/status.html#webassembly-features

[Yoav Weiss]

LGTM1

Given that this is listed in https://github.com/WebAssembly/proposals/blob/master/finished-proposals.md I'm assuming Safari are supportive and no further signals are required.

[Mike West]

LGTM2, with the same rationale.

-mike

[Chris Harrelson]

LGTM3

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