wasi-sdk/README.md

# WASI SDK

## Quick Start

[Download SDK packages here.][releases]

[releases]: https://github.com/WebAssembly/wasi-sdk/releases

## About this repository

This repository contains no compiler or library code itself; it uses
git submodules to pull in the upstream Clang and LLVM tree, as well as the
wasi-libc tree.

The libc portion of this SDK is maintained in [wasi-libc].

[wasi-libc]: https://github.com/WebAssembly/wasi-libc

Upstream Clang and LLVM (from 9.0 onwards) can compile for WASI out of the box,
and WebAssembly support is included in them by default. So, all that's done here
is to provide builds configured to set the default target and sysroot for
convenience.

One could also use a standard Clang installation, build a sysroot from the
sources mentioned above, and compile with `--target=wasm32-wasi
--sysroot=/path/to/sysroot`. In this scenario, one would also need the
`libclang_rt.builtins-wasm32.a` objects available separately in the [release
downloads][releases] which must be extracted into
`$CLANG_INSTALL_DIR/$CLANG_VERSION/lib/wasi/`.

## Clone

This repository uses git submodule, to clone it you need use the command below :

```shell script
git clone --recursive https://github.com/WebAssembly/wasi-sdk.git
```

## Requirements

The Wasm-sdk's build process needs some packages :

* `cmake`
* `clang`
* `ninja`
* `python3`

Please refer to your OS documentation to install those packages.

## Build

Building `wasi-sdk` uses CMake and is split into two halves. First you can build
the toolchain itself:

```shell script
cmake -G Ninja -B build/toolchain -S . -DWASI_SDK_BUILD_TOOLCHAIN=ON -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=build/install
cmake --build build/toolchain --target install
```

When you're developing locally you may also wish to pass
`-DCMAKE_CXX_COMPILER_LAUNCHER=ccache` to assist with rebuilds. Other supported
CMake flags are:

* `-DLLVM_CMAKE_FLAGS` - extra flags to pass to `cmake` when building
  LLVM/Clang.
* `-DRUST_TARGET` - the specific Rust target triple to build `wasm-component-ld`
  for, useful for cross-compiles.

The `clang` compiler should now be located at `build/install/bin/clang` but it's
just a compiler, the sysroot isn't built yet. Next the second step of the build
is to build the sysroot:

```shell script
cmake -G Ninja -B build/sysroot -S . \
    -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=build/install \
    -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE=build/install/share/cmake/wasi-sdk.cmake \
    -DCMAKE_C_COMPILER_WORKS=ON \
    -DCMAKE_CXX_COMPILER_WORKS=ON
cmake --build build/sysroot --target install
```

A full toolchain should now be present at `build/install` and is ready for use
in compiling WebAssembly code. Supported CMake flags are:

* `-DWASI_SDK_DEBUG_PREFIX_MAKE=OFF` - disable `-fdebug-prefix-map` when
  building C/C++ code to use full host paths instead.
* `-DWASI_SDK_INCLUDE_TESTS=ON` - used for building tests.
* `-DWASI_SDK_TEST_HOST_TOOLCHAIN=ON` - test the host toolchain's wasi-libc and
  sysroot libraries, don't build or use fresh libraries for tests.
* `-DWASI_SDK_TARGETS=..` - a list of targets to build, by default all WASI
  targets are compiled.
* `-DWASI_SDK_INSTALL_TO_CLANG_RESOURCE_DIR=ON` - install compiler-rt
  to the compiler's resource directory. might be convenient if you want to
  use the toolchain (eg. `./build/install/bin/clang`) in-place.

If you'd like to build distribution artifacts you can use the `dist` target like
so:

```shell script
cmake --build build/toolchain --target dist
cmake --build build/sysroot --target dist
```

Tarballs will be created under `build/toolchain/dist` and `build/sysroot/dist`.
Note that these are separate tarballs for the toolchain and sysroot. To create a
single tarball for the entire SDK you'll first want to copy all tarballs into a
new folder and then run the `./ci/merge-artifacts.sh` script:

```shell script
mkdir dist-my-platform
cp build/toolchain/dist/* build/sysroot/dist/* dist-my-platform
./ci/merge-artifacts.sh
```

This will produce `dist/wasi-sdk-*.tar.gz` which is the same as the release
artifacts for this repository.

Finally you can additionally bundle many of the above steps, minus
`merge-artifact.sh` by using the CI script to perform both the toolchain and
sysroot build:

```shell script
./ci/build.sh
```

The built package can be found into `build/dist` directory.
For releasing a new version of the package on GitHub,
see [RELEASING.md](RELEASING.md).

## Install

A typical installation from the release binaries might look like the following:

```shell script
WASI_OS=linux
WASI_ARCH=x86_64
WASI_VERSION=24
WASI_VERSION_FULL=${WASI_VERSION}.0
wget https://github.com/WebAssembly/wasi-sdk/releases/download/wasi-sdk-${WASI_VERSION}/wasi-sdk-${WASI_VERSION_FULL}-${WASI_ARCH}-${WASI_OS}.tar.gz
tar xvf wasi-sdk-${WASI_VERSION_FULL}-${WASI_ARCH}-${WASI_OS}.tar.gz
```

## Use

Use the clang installed in the `wasi-sdk` directory:

```shell script
WASI_SDK_PATH=`pwd`/wasi-sdk-${WASI_VERSION_FULL}-${WASI_ARCH}-${WASI_OS}
CC="${WASI_SDK_PATH}/bin/clang --sysroot=${WASI_SDK_PATH}/share/wasi-sysroot"
$CC foo.c -o foo.wasm
```

Note: `${WASI_SDK_PATH}/share/wasi-sysroot` contains the WASI-specific
includes/libraries/etc. The `--sysroot=...` option is not necessary if
`WASI_SDK_PATH` is `/opt/wasi-sdk`. For troubleshooting, one can replace the
`--sysroot` path with a manual build of [wasi-libc].

### Integrating with a CMake build system

Use a toolchain file to setup the *wasi-sdk* platform.

```
$ cmake -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE=${WASI_SDK_PATH}/share/cmake/wasi-sdk.cmake ...
```

or the *wasi-sdk-thread* platform

```
$ cmake -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE=${WASI_SDK_PATH}/share/cmake/wasi-sdk-pthread.cmake ...
```

## Notes for Autoconf

[Autoconf] 2.70 now [recognizes WASI].

[Autoconf]: https://www.gnu.org/software/autoconf/autoconf.html
[recognizes WASI]: https://git.savannah.gnu.org/gitweb/?p=autoconf.git;a=blob;f=build-aux/config.sub;h=19c9553b1825cafb182115513bc628e0ee801bd0;hb=97fbc5c184acc6fa591ad094eae86917f03459fa#l1723

For convenience when building packages that aren't yet updated, updated
config.sub and config.guess files are installed at `share/misc/config.*`
in the install directory.

## Docker Image

We provide a [docker image] including WASI SDK that can be used for building
projects without a separate installation of the SDK. Autotools, CMake, and Ninja
are included in this image, and standard environment variables are set to use
WASI SDK for building.

[docker image]: https://github.com/WebAssembly/wasi-sdk/pkgs/container/wasi-sdk

For example, this command can build a make-based project with the Docker
image.

```
docker run -v `pwd`:/src -w /src ghcr.io/webassembly/wasi-sdk make
```

Take note of the [notable limitations](#notable-limitations) below when
building projects, for example many projects will need threads support
disabled in a configure step before building with WASI SDK.

## Notable Limitations

This repository does not yet support __C++ exceptions__. C++ code is supported
only with -fno-exceptions for now.
Work on support for [exception handling] is underway at the
language level which will support the features.

[exception handling]: https://github.com/WebAssembly/exception-handling/

See [C setjmp/longjmp support] about setjmp/longjmp support.

[C setjmp/longjmp support]: SetjmpLongjmp.md

This repository experimentally supports __threads__ with
`--target=wasm32-wasi-threads`. It uses WebAssembly's [threads] primitives
(atomics, `wait`/`notify`, shared memory) and [wasi-threads] for spawning
threads. Note: this is experimental — do not expect long-term stability!

[threads]: https://github.com/WebAssembly/threads
[wasi-threads]: https://github.com/WebAssembly/wasi-threads

This repository does not yet support __dynamic libraries__. While there are
[some efforts] to design a system for dynamic libraries in wasm, it is still in
development and not yet generally usable.

[some efforts]: https://github.com/WebAssembly/tool-conventions/blob/master/DynamicLinking.md

There is no support for __networking__. It is a goal of WASI to support
networking in the future though.