如何协调主机 JS 和 Wasm 模块之间的内存访问？

Question

At present, Webassembly only supports a handful of parameter types , namely fixed sized integers and floating point numbers. This means that I can only define and export functions from my C/Rust modules that accept and return numeric values.

However, according to the Mozilla Developer Network , I can manipulate the module's memory from the host Javascript:

[M]emory created by JavaScript or in WebAssembly code will be accessible and mutable from both JavaScript and WebAssembly.

This sounds very promising--it indicates that I could designate part of the memory as a byte buffer in which to shuttle more complex data back and forth across the language barrier. Functions in my module could accept and return pointers (which are themselves i32 , fixed size integers), thereby working within the current constraints.

Unfortunately, it is not clear how I should go about managing this memory. If I need to pass data to the Wasm process from JS, I need to write to the Memory object directly but won't know which regions in the Memory are free.

What's the safest strategy? Should I export a pair of malloc -and- free -style functions that give the JS a way to request memory before calls into Wasm? Or is there an established best practice?

Answer 1

I think the easiest thing is to use Emscripten, and use its built-in malloc / free. Then export a function which, in C++, allocates the memory requested through that malloc / free, and returns the pointer. That way JavaScript can call into WebAssembly to get a usable memory region which isn't already used.

I've detailed how to share strings to / from JS / wasm in this answer , which has details on some of the above.

Note that pointers in WebAssembly aren't really a thing. C++ simply maps them to the Memory, which starts at 0. So when you index the ArrayBuffer you just need the pointer from C++, no extra mapping required.