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Learn WebAssembly

By : Rourke

2.3 (4)

Learn WebAssembly

2.3 (4)

By: Rourke

Overview of this book

WebAssembly is a brand-new technology that represents a paradigm shift in web development. This book teaches programmers to leverage this technology to write high-performance applications that run in the browser. This book introduces you to powerful WebAssembly concepts to help you write lean and powerful web applications with native performance. You start with the evolution of web programming, the state of things today, and what can be done with the advent and release of WebAssembly. We take a look at the journey from JavaScript to asm.js to WebAssembly. We then move on to analyze the anatomy of a WebAssembly module and the relationship between binary and text formats, along with the corresponding JavaScript API. Further on, you'll implement all the techniques you've learned to build a high-performance application using C and WebAssembly, and then port an existing game written in C++ to WebAssembly using Emscripten. By the end of this book, you will be well-equipped to create high-performance applications and games for the web using WebAssembly.

Preface

Preface

Who this book is for

What this book covers

To get the most out of this book

Get in touch

Free Chapter

What is WebAssembly?

What is WebAssembly?

The road to WebAssembly

What exactly is WebAssembly and where can I use it?

What languages are supported?

What are the limitations?

How does it relate to Emscripten?

Summary

Questions

Further reading

Elements of WebAssembly - Wat, Wasm, and the JavaScript API

Elements of WebAssembly - Wat, Wasm, and the JavaScript API

Common structure and abstract syntax

Wat

Binary format and the module file (Wasm)

The JavaScript and Web APIs

Connecting the dots with WasmFiddle

Summary

Questions

Further reading

Setting Up a Development Environment

Setting Up a Development Environment

Installing the development tooling

Configuring VS Code

Setting up for the web

Other tools

Summary

Questions

Further reading

Installing the Required Dependencies

Installing the Required Dependencies

The development workflow

Emscripten and the EMSDK

Installing the prerequisites

Installing and configuring the EMSDK

Testing the compiler

Summary

Questions

Further reading

Creating and Loading a WebAssembly Module

Creating and Loading a WebAssembly Module

Compiling C with Emscripten glue code

Loading the Emscripten module

Compiling C without the glue code

Fetching and instantiating a Wasm file

Summary

Questions

Further reading

Interacting with JavaScript and Debugging

Interacting with JavaScript and Debugging

The Emscripten module versus the WebAssembly object

Calling compiled C/C++ functions from JavaScript

Calling JavaScript functions from C/C++

Advanced Emscripten features

Debugging in the browser

Summary

Questions

Further reading

Creating an Application from Scratch

Creating an Application from Scratch

Cook the Books – making WebAssembly accountable

Setting up the project

Building the C portion

Building the JavaScript portion

Running the application

Summary

Questions

Further reading

Porting a Game with Emscripten

Porting a Game with Emscripten

Overview of the game

The code base in depth

Porting to Emscripten

Building and running the game

Summary

Questions

Further reading

Integrating with Node.js

Integrating with Node.js

Why Node.js?

Server-side WebAssembly with Express

Client-side WebAssembly with Webpack

Testing WebAssembly modules with Jest

Summary

Questions

Further reading

Advanced Tools and Upcoming Features

Advanced Tools and Upcoming Features

WABT and Binaryen

Compiling with LLVM

Online tooling

Parallel Wasm with Web Workers

Upcoming features

Summary

Questions

Further reading

Other Books You May Enjoy

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Creating an Application from Scratch

Now it's time to apply your knowledge! Since one of WebAssembly's primary design goals is to execute within and integrate well with the existing web platform, it makes sense to build a web application to test it out. Even though WebAssembly's current feature set is rather limited, we can utilize the technology at a basic level. In this chapter, we will build a single-page application from scratch that utilizes Wasm modules within the context of the Core Specification.

By the end of this chapter, you'll know how to:

Write functions that perform simple computations with C
Build a basic JavaScript application with Vue
Integrate Wasm into your JavaScript application
Identify the capabilities and limitations of WebAssembly in its current form
Run and test a JavaScript application using browser-sync

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