RPython WASM

This is a fork from PyPy's RPython in the original bitbucket repo compatible to Emscripten's emcc.

What is RPython

Graham Jenson writes a nice article about it. Basically, RPython is what powers PyPy as described in its documentation here.

Installation

RPython it self depends on PyPy (or Python 2.7) and GCC on Linux and Windows (Cygwin), on MacOS it uses clang. Install PyPy from the official website (PyPy still supports 2.7) or alternatively use existing Python 2.7 on your system. ~~Then, install emcc from Emscripten's SDK.~~ IMPORTANT: Because of recent changes in emscripten/clang/llvm, this fork doesn't work anymore. Install emscripten version 3.0.1 if you can or use --docker parameter to use docker version of the emscripten (you can pull the image first with docker pull emscripten/emsdk:3.0.1 to ensure the image is downloaded)

Install rpython with npm:

npm install rpython -g

Now the rpython executable is available in your PATH

Usage

For example create a python file named main.py:

def main(argv):
    print('hello from rpython')
    return 0

def target(*args):
    return main, None

if __name__ == '__main__':
    import sys
    main(sys.argv)

And then compiles it to WASM with RPython:

rpython /path/to/main.py

It will compiles the main.py to WASM file and it's .js files (to load the WASM) to current directory.

JS API

There are some JS API that can be used to help interfacing to JS, awaiting asynchronous functions, and building nested, multi-hierarchial, multi-types JSON:

• Async/Await like syntax

from javascript import asynchronous
from typing import Object, Function

Response = Object({
    'text': Function,
})

@asynchronous
def get_page(url):
    require = Object('require')
    fetch = require.call('node-fetch') #Obviously, install node-fetch first on npm
    fetch_response = fetch.call(url).wait()
    response = Response(fetch_response)
    text = response.text().wait()
    return text

@asynchronous
def get_pages():
    google, youtube = get_page('https://google.com').wait(), get_page('https://youtube.com').wait()
    print(google)
    print(youtube)

def main(argv):
    get_pages()
    return 0

def target(*args): return main, None 

Asynchronous Execution

When we decide to implement async/await the easiest option is to use Asyncify. But Asyncify come with few caveats, overhead both in performance and file size, and the worst, reentrancy. Asyncify doesn't support reentrancy and that means if RPython is awaiting a task blocking the execution stack, and another function is called (either by user event like click or a timer, or another asynchronous task, etc) it will throw an error. We can overcome this by awaiting RPython until it is done executing active task and immediately call it but that will results in synchronous execution (no parallel) and that is not what async/await is all about.

Another solution is implementing an event loop, awaiting in a pseudo while loop for event listener calls but that is complex and non-intiuitive. What we do alternatively is transforming the function to a series of callbacks and yields at compile time (RPython supports evaluating and modifying Python objects at compile time), consisting of variables caching and re-assigning on the next tick and resolves the caller when the function is done executing (similar to https://babeljs.io/docs/en/babel-plugin-transform-async-to-generator). This is all done with the asynchronous decorator.

WebAssembly and Memory

We use wasm2js on default because current implementation of WebAssembly doesn't support shrinking memory (e.g freeing allocated memory, allocated memory can only be zero'd but not phisically freed in WebAssembly) but wasm2js supports it. To compile to original wasm, you need to explicitly pass --wasm argument to rpython. It is only recommended to use it on high memory, vertically-scaled servers so memory will be allocated at high volume without a problem. Our transition to wasm2js also enables it to run on React Native and other runtimes that doesn't have WebAssembly. Here is some github issues that you can read about WebAssembly and Memory:

• Shrinking memory and swap/switch memory or clone the instance it self to 'force' gc collecting the exponentially grown memory
• Freeing/Shrinking memory
• Wasm needs a better memory management story

Limitation

Because RPython is a subset of Python. You can't code in RPython just like you do on Python. Variables, functions, dictionaries, and lists can only have one type. The most dynamic type in RPython is class, class can nearly have any types on it's attributes. Just don't getattr them and assign them to a same variable, use isinstance in an if else if you insist to use getattr. The second most dynamic type in RPython is tuples, but unlike in Python tuples must be in a fixed length and you can't concat multiple tuples into one tuple. Here's a few guide to code in RPython:

• https://rpython.readthedocs.io/
• https://maori.geek.nz/rpython-is-not-a-language-an-introduction-to-the-rpython-language-9f48c7a3047
• https://mesapy.org/rpython-by-example/
• https://refi64.com/posts/the-magic-of-rpython.html

Compatibility

There's two things that are commented out from the RPython's source code:

• ASM call
• Pthread

Emscripten doesn't support ASM call on the resulting binary as it would make it not portable. And for now Pthread is also commented because major browsers have not implement it yet (https://emscripten.org/docs/porting/pthreads.html).