1898d52966
`VMExternRef` is a reference-counted box for any kind of data that is
external and opaque to running Wasm. Sometimes it might hold a Wasmtime
thing, other times it might hold something from a Wasmtime embedder and is
opaque even to us. It is morally equivalent to `Rc<dyn Any>` in Rust, but
additionally always fits in a pointer-sized word. `VMExternRef` is
non-nullable, but `Option<VMExternRef>` is a null pointer.
The one part of `VMExternRef` that can't ever be opaque to us is the
reference count. Even when we don't know what's inside an `VMExternRef`, we
need to be able to manipulate its reference count as we add and remove
references to it. And we need to do this from compiled Wasm code, so it must
be `repr(C)`!
`VMExternRef` itself is just a pointer to an `VMExternData`, which holds the
opaque, boxed value, its reference count, and its vtable pointer.
The `VMExternData` struct is *preceded* by the dynamically-sized value boxed
up and referenced by one or more `VMExternRef`s:
```ignore
,-------------------------------------------------------.
| |
V |
+----------------------------+-----------+-----------+ |
| dynamically-sized value... | ref_count | value_ptr |---'
+----------------------------+-----------+-----------+
| VMExternData |
+-----------------------+
^
+-------------+ |
| VMExternRef |-------------------+
+-------------+ |
|
+-------------+ |
| VMExternRef |-------------------+
+-------------+ |
|
... ===
|
+-------------+ |
| VMExternRef |-------------------'
+-------------+
```
The `value_ptr` member always points backwards to the start of the
dynamically-sized value (which is also the start of the heap allocation for
this value-and-`VMExternData` pair). Because it is a `dyn` pointer, it is
fat, and also points to the value's `Any` vtable.
The boxed value and the `VMExternRef` footer are held a single heap
allocation. The layout described above is used to make satisfying the
value's alignment easy: we just need to ensure that the heap allocation used
to hold everything satisfies its alignment. It also ensures that we don't
need a ton of excess padding between the `VMExternData` and the value for
values with large alignment.
This is the wasmtime-runtime crate, which contains wasm runtime library
support, supporting the wasm ABI used by wasmtime-environ,
wasmtime-jit, and wasmtime-obj.
This crate does not make a host vs. target distinction; it is meant to be compiled for the target.
Most users will want to use the main wasmtime crate instead of using this
crate directly.