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Specify display conventions for wasm locations #1053

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May 22, 2017
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Expand Up @@ -123,6 +123,53 @@ MIME type mismatch or `opaque` response types
[reject](http://tc39.github.io/ecma262/#sec-rejectpromise) the Promise with a
`WebAssembly.CompileError`.

## Developer-facing display conventions

Browsers, JavaScript engines, and offline tools have common ways of referring to
JavaScript artifacts and language constructs. For example, locations in
JavaScript source code are printed in stack traces or error messages, and are
represented naturally as decimal-format lines and columns in text files. Names
of functions and variables are taken directly from the sources. Therefore (for
example) even though the exact format of Error.stack strings does not always
match, the locations are easily understandable and the same across browsers.

To achive the same goal of a common representations for WebAssembly constructs, the
following conventions are adopted.

A WebAssembly location is a reference to a particular instruction in the binary, and may be
displayed by a browser or engine in similar contexts as JavaScript source locations.
It has the following format:
`${url}:wasm-function[${funcIndex}]:${pcOffset}`
Where
* `${url}` is the URL associated with the module (e.g. via a response
object), or other module identifier (see notes).
* `${funcIndex}` is an index the [function index space](Modules.md#function-index-space).
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Typo: missing "in"

* `${pcOffset}` is the offset in the module binary of the first byte
of the instruction, printed in hexadecimal with lower-case digits,
with a leading `0x` prefix.

Notes:
* The URL field may be interpreted differently depending on the context. For
example offline tools may use a file name; or when the ArrayBuffer-based
`WebAssembly.instantiate` API is used in a browser, it may display the
location of the API call instead. It should not be empty however; a
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API calls may not have useful source locations either, e.g. when performed as part of an eval call.

developer should be able to write their code such that modules from
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Are you suggesting that programmers should be able to rely on unambiguous location URLs? If so, I don't think that can work in general, e.g. for the aforementioned reason, but also because of URL ambiguities in general. I would rather drop that half-sentence.

different sources are displayed with different identifiers.
* Using hexadecimal for module offsets matches common conventions in native tools
such as objdump (where addresses are printed in hex) and makes them visually
distinct from JavaScript line numbers. Other numbers are represented in decimal.

Names of functions may also be displayed if the module contains a `"name"`
section; these can be used in the same contexts as JavaScript functions.
If there are no names provided, then engines should simply ensure that
the location can still be identified (e.g. by showing the function
number instead, if the full location is not already being shown).
Note also that this document does
not specify the full format of strings such as stack frame representations;
this allows engines to continue using their existing formats for JavaScript
(which existing code may already be depending on) while still printing
WebAssembly frames in a format consistent with JavaScript.
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Could you also add a Note saying somewhere that these conventions do not describe the value of the .name property of exported WebAssembly functions which is precisely [defined](JS.md#exported-function-exotic-objects) to be ToString(function-index)

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Ha good point. Would we want a way to map one to the other as a standalone function?

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You you mean like some new JS API for producing the module_name.func_name? That seems possible, but it also makes the names section (more) semantically visible (than before), so I guess it depends on what our use case is.

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Yes. My thinking it: we already let developers access the name section so they don't have to parse their own module... but then they need to parse the name section to get that information! Cut the middle-person. 😄

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Yeah, that makes sense if client code would otherwise be doing their own binary parsing that we've already done. With the other Module reflection methods, our motivating use case was module loaders (and specific experience with incorporating wasm into SystemJS). It'd be nice to have some specific user who is wanting to programmatically access these function names.

Anyhow, this probably belongs in a different issue.


## Modules

WebAssembly's [modules](Modules.md) allow for natural [integration with
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