WebAssembly / WebAssembly/spec

[spec] externaddr is meant to be uninterpreted but has a grammar definition

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Description

I was looking through the definition of addresses and found it might be contradicting itself.

https://www.w3.org/TR/wasm-core-2/exec/runtime.html#syntax-externaddr

It mentions "an embedder may supply an uninterpreted set of host addresses" but also has "externaddr ::= addr", which seems to be interpreting the host address as an unsigned integer. Two possible improvements are

  • Rename "host addresses" to "external addresses", or "externaddr" to "hostaddr". I think these two are talking about the same thing but it's not clear with the word being different.
  • Tweak "externaddr ::= addr", I don't know if there is a way to represent an opaque value in the grammar but "addr" doesn't seem correct here given it has a definition

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First steps

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  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
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Research direction

Start with the runtime specification section linked in the issue, syntax-externaddr. Compare the prose describing host addresses with the externaddr ::= addr grammar and determine whether the terminology or grammar is inconsistent. Done means the specification clearly describes the intended opaque address representation without contradicting itself.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
wasm
Domain
documentation
Issue type
Documentation
Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
35/100

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