This document will describe the differences between Wasmer 2.x and Wasmer 3.0.0 and provide examples to make migrating to the new API as simple as possible.
This version introduces the following changes to make the Wasmer API more ergonomic and safe:
ImportsObject
and the traitsResolver
,NamedResolver
, etc have been removed and replaced with a single simple typeImports
. This reduces the complexity of setting up anInstance
. The helper macroimports!
can still be used.- The
Store
will keep track of all memory and functions used, removing old tracking and Weak/Strong pointer usage. Every function and memory that can be defined is associated to a specificStore
, and cannot be mixed with anotherStore
NativeFunc
has been renamed toTypedFunction
, accordingly the following functions have been renamed:Function::native(…)
→Function::typed(…)
Function::new_native(…)
→Function::new_typed(…)
Function::new_native_with_env(…)
→Function::new_typed_with_env(…)
The previous variants still exist in order to support the migration, but they have been deprecated.
WasmerEnv
and associated traits and macro have been removed. To use a function environment, you will need to create aFunctionEnv
object and pass it along when you construct the function. For convenience, these functions also exist in a variant without the environment for simpler use cases that don't need it. For the variants with the environment, it can be retrieved from the first argument of the function. Because theWasmerEnv
and all helpers don't exists anymore, you have to import memory yourself, there isn't any per instance initialisation automatically done anymore. It's especially important in wasi use withWasiEnv
.Env
can be accessed from aFunctionEnvMut<'_, WasiEnv>
usingFunctionEnvMut::data()
orFunctionEnvMut::data_mut()
.- The
Engine
s API has been simplified, Instead of the user choosing and setting up an engine explicitly, everything now uses a single engine. All functionalities of theuniversal
,staticlib
anddylib
engines should be available in this new engine unless explicitly stated as unsupported.
See wasmer.io for installation instructions.
If you already have wasmer installed, run wasmer self-update
.
Install the latest versions of Wasmer with wasmer-nightly or by following the steps described in the documentation: Getting Started.
One of the main changes in 3.0.0 is that Store
now owns all WebAssembly objects; thus exports like a Memory
are merely handles to the actual memory object inside the store. To read/write any such value you will always need a Store
reference.
If you define your own function, when the function is called it will hence need a reference to the store in order to access WebAssembly objects. This is achieved by the StoreRef<'_>
and StoreMut<'_>
types, which borrow from the store and provide access to its data. Furthermore, to prevent borrowing issues you can create new StoreRef
and StoreMut
s whenever you need to pass one at another function. This is done with the AsStoreRef
, AsStoreMut
traits.
See the examples to find out how to do specific things in Wasmer 3.0.0.
A lot of types were moved to wasmer-types
crate. There are no engine
crates anymore; all the logic is included in wasmer-compiler
.
WasmerEnv
has been removed in Wasmer 3.0 in favor of FunctionEnv
, which is now shareable automatically between functions without requiring the environment to be clonable.
let my_counter = 0_i32;
let env = FunctionEnv::new(&mut store, my_counter);
Note: Any type can be passed as the environment: (Nota bene the passed type T
must implement the Any
trait, that is, any type which contains a non-'static
reference.)
struct Env {
counter: i32,
}
let env = FunctionEnv::new(&mut store, Env {counter: 0});
Here's how the code depending on WasmerEnv
should evolve:
#[derive(wasmer::WasmerEnv, Clone)]
pub struct MyEnv {
#[wasmer(export)]
pub memory: wasmer::LazyInit<Memory>,
#[wasmer(export(name = "__alloc"))]
pub alloc_guest_memory: LazyInit<NativeFunc<u32, i32>>,
pub multiply_by: u32,
}
let my_env = MyEnv {
memory: Default::default(),
alloc_guest_memory: Default::default(),
multiply_by: 10,
};
let instance = Instance::new(&module, &imports);
pub struct MyEnv {
pub memory: Option<Memory>,
pub alloc_guest_memory: Option<TypedFunction<i32, i32>>,
pub multiply_by: u32,
}
let env = FunctionEnv::new(&mut store, MyEnv {
memory: None,
alloc_guest_memory: None,
multiply_by: 10,
});
let instance = Instance::new(&module, &imports);
let mut env_mut = env.as_mut(&mut store);
env_mut.memory = Some(instance.exports.get_memory("memory"));
env_mut.alloc_guest_memory = Some(instance.exports.get_typed_function("__alloc"));
Reading from memory has slightly changed compared to 2.x:
// 2.x
let memory = instance.exports.get_memory("mem")?;
println!("Memory size (pages) {:?}", memory.size());
println!("Memory size (bytes) {:?}", memory.data_size());
let load = instance
.exports
.get_native_function::<(), (WasmPtr<u8, Array>, i32)>("load")?;
let (ptr, length) = load.call(&mut store)?;
let str = ptr.get_utf8_string(memory, length as u32).unwrap();
println!("Memory contents: {:?}", str);
// 3.x
let memory = instance.exports.get_memory("mem")?;
let memory_view = memory.view(&store);
println!("Memory size (pages) {:?}", memory_view.size());
println!("Memory size (bytes) {:?}", memory_view.data_size());
let load: TypedFunction<(), (WasmPtr<u8>, i32)> =
instance.exports.get_typed_function(&mut store, "load")?;
let (ptr, length) = load.call(&mut store)?;
let memory_view = memory.view(&store);
let str = ptr.read_utf8_string(&memory_view, length as u32).unwrap();
println!("Memory contents: {:?}", str);
The reason for this change is that in the future this will enable safely sharing memory across threads. The same thing goes for reading slices:
// 2.x
let new_str = b"Hello, Wasmer!";
let values = ptr.deref(memory, 0, new_str.len() as u32).unwrap();
for i in 0..new_str.len() {
values[i].set(new_str[i]);
}
// 3.x
let memory_view = memory.view(&store); // (can be reused)
let new_str = b"Hello, Wasmer!";
let values = ptr.slice(&memory_view, new_str.len() as u32).unwrap();
for i in 0..new_str.len() {
values.index(i as u64).write(new_str[i]).unwrap();
}
Instantiating a Wasm module is similar to 2.x;
let import_object: Imports = imports! {
"env" => {
"host_function" => host_function,
},
};
let instance = Instance::new(&mut store, &module, &import_object).expect("Could not instantiate module.");
You can also build the Imports
object manually:
let mut import_object: Imports = Imports::new();
import_object.define("env", "host_function", host_function);
let instance = Instance::new(&mut store, &module, &import_object).expect("Could not instantiate module.");
For WASI, don't forget to import memory to WasiEnv
let mut wasi_env = WasiState::new("hello").finalize()?;
let import_object = wasi_env.import_object(&mut store, &module)?;
let instance = Instance::new(&mut store, &module, &import_object).expect("Could not instantiate module.");
let memory = instance.exports.get_memory("memory")?;
wasi_env.data_mut(&mut store).set_memory(memory.clone());
Chaining imports with a trait has been deemed too complex for what it does; it's possible to chain (i.e. override) an Imports
' contents by using its implementation of std::iter::Extend
from the Rust standard library:
let imports1: Imports = todo!();
let mut imports2: Imports = todo!();
imports2.extend(&imports);
// This is equivalent to the following:
// for ((ns, name), ext) in imports1.into_iter() {
// imports2.define(&ns &name, ext);
// }
In Wasmer 2.0, you had to explicitly define the Engine you want to use:
let wasm_bytes = wat2wasm(
"..".as_bytes(),
)?;
let compiler_config = Cranelift::default();
let engine = Universal::new(compiler_config).engine();
let mut store = Store::new(&engine);
let module = Module::new(&store, wasm_bytes)?;
let instance = Instance::new(&module, &imports! {})?;
In Wasmer 3.0, there's only one engine. The user can ignore the engine details when using the API:
let wasm_bytes = wat2wasm(
"..".as_bytes(),
)?;
let compiler = Cranelift::default();
let mut store = Store::new(compiler);
let module = Module::new(&store, wasm_bytes)?;
let instance = Instance::new(&mut store, &module, &imports! {})?;
The previous ability to define target and features remains in a new EngineBuilder
interface:
let compiler = Cranelift::default();
let mut features = Features::new();
// Enable the multi-value feature.
features.multi_value(true);
let engine = EngineBuilder::new(compiler).set_features(Some(features));
let store = Store::new(engine);
The WASM C-API hasn't changed. Some wasmer-specific functions have changed, that relate to setting up WASI environments.
wasi_env_new
function changed input parameters to accommodate the new Store API, it now is:struct wasi_env_t *wasi_env_new(wasm_store_t *store, struct wasi_config_t *config);
wasi_get_imports
function changed input parameters to accommodate the new Store API, it now is:bool wasi_get_imports(const wasm_store_t *_store, struct wasi_env_t *wasi_env, const wasm_module_t *module, wasm_extern_vec_t *imports);
wasi_env_set_memory
was added. It's necessary to set theWasiEnv
memory by getting it fromInstance
s memory exports after its initialization. This must be performed in a specific order:- Create WasiEnv
- Create Instance
- Get Instance Exports
- Find Memory from Instance Exports and store it to WasiEnv The function's signature is:
void wasi_env_set_memory(struct wasi_env_t *env, const wasm_memory_t *memory);