Wasmer Go

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A complete and mature WebAssembly runtime for Go based on Wasmer.

Features

• Easy to use: The wasmer API mimics the standard WebAssembly API,
• Fast: wasmer executes the WebAssembly modules as fast as possible, close to native speed,
• Safe: All calls to WebAssembly will be fast, but more importantly, completely safe and sandboxed.

Documentation: browse the detailed API documentation full of examples.

Examples as tutorials: browse the examples/ directory, it's the best place for a complete introduction!

Install

To install the library, follow the classical:

$ go get github.com/wasmerio/wasmer-go/wasmer

And you're ready to get fun!

Supported platforms

This library embeds the Wasmer runtime compiled as shared library objects, and so uses cgo to consume it. A set of precompiled shared library objects are provided. Thus this library works (and is tested) on the following platforms:

Examples

We highly recommend to read the examples/ directory, which contains a sequence of examples/tutorials. It's the best place to learn by reading examples.

But for the most eager of you, there is a quick toy program in examples/appendices/simple.go, written in Rust:

#[no_mangle]
pub extern "C" fn sum(x: i32, y: i32) -> i32 {
    x + y
}

A compiled WebAssembly binary is included in examples/appendices/simple.wasm.

Then, we can execute it in Go:

package main

import (
    "fmt"
    "os"
    wasmer "github.com/wasmerio/wasmer-go/wasmer"
)

func main() {
    wasmBytes, _ := os.ReadFile("simple.wasm")

    engine := wasmer.NewEngine()
    store := wasmer.NewStore(engine)

    // Compiles the module
    module, _ := wasmer.NewModule(store, wasmBytes)

    // Instantiates the module
    importObject := wasmer.NewImportObject()
    instance, _ := wasmer.NewInstance(module, importObject)

    // Gets the `sum` exported function from the WebAssembly instance.
    sum, _ := instance.Exports.GetFunction("sum")

    // Calls that exported function with Go standard values. The WebAssembly
    // types are inferred and values are casted automatically.
    result, _ := sum(5, 37)

    fmt.Println(result) // 42!
}

And then, finally, enjoy by running:

$ cd examples/appendices/
$ go run simple.go
42

Testing

Run the tests with the following command:

$ just test

What is WebAssembly?

Quoting the WebAssembly site:

WebAssembly (abbreviated Wasm) is a binary instruction format for a stack-based virtual machine. Wasm is designed as a portable target for compilation of high-level languages like C/C++/Rust, enabling deployment on the web for client and server applications.

About speed:

WebAssembly aims to execute at native speed by taking advantage of common hardware capabilities available on a wide range of platforms.

About safety:

WebAssembly describes a memory-safe, sandboxed execution environment […].

License

The entire project is under the MIT License. Please read the LICENSE file.

FAQ

How to run Go programs compiled to WebAssembly modules with wasmer-go?

Let's start by emphasing that wasmer-go is a WebAssembly runtime. It allows to run WebAssembly inside Go. It's not a tool to compile a Go program into WebAssembly. Nonetheless, many people are reporting issues when compiling Go programs to WebAssembly, and then trying to run them with wasmer-go (or in another hosts, like Python, C, PHP, Ruby, Rust…).

The major problem is that, whilst the Go compiler supports WebAssembly, it does not support WASI (WebAssembly System Interface). It generates an ABI that is deeply tied to JavaScript, and one needs to use the wasm_exec.js file provided by the Go toolchain, which doesn't work outside a JavaScript host.

Fortunately, there are two solutions to this problem:

1. Use TinyGo to compile your Go program to WebAssembly with the -target wasi option, e.g.:

   $ tinygo build -o module.wasm -target wasi .

   The generated WebAssembly module will be portable across all WebAssembly runtimes that support WASI.

2. Use the Go compiler with adapters. Let's see how to compile:

   $ GOOS=js GOARCH=wasm go build -o module.wasm .

   (the GOOS=js is the sign that JavaScript is targeted, not a surprise).

   Then pick one adapter (they are written by the community):

   • mattn/gowasmer,
   • go-wasm-adapter/go-wasm,

   and follow their documentation.

We highly recommend the first solution (with TinyGo) if it works for you as the WebAssembly module will be portable across all WebAssembly runtimes. It's not a hacky solution based on adapters; it's the right way to… go.