WebAssembly / WebAssembly/tool-conventions
Should we define a scalar intrinsics header?
Nobody has claimed this yet.
- Dominant language
- WebAssembly
- Stars
- 372
- Forks
- 75
- PR merge metrics
- No merged PRs in 30d
Description
@Maratyszcza suggested to me that we should have a portable intrinsics header for non-SIMD WebAssembly instructions that are not directly expressible in C, so I wanted to gauge wider interest in such a header. On hand there is only one production C/C++ compiler for WebAssembly at the moment so portability isn't so important, but on the other hand it may be important in the future and having proper intrinsics is certainly more ergonomic than writing __builtin_wasm_* everwhere. What do people think?
There is precedent for scalar intrinsics on other platforms, for example arm_acle.h documented in http://infocenter.arm.com/help/topic/com.arm.doc.ihi0053c/IHI0053C_acle_2_0.pdf.
Some instructions such a header would include would be i32.clz, i32.ctz, i32.popcnt, i32.shr_s, i32.rotl, i32.rotr, f32.min, f32.max, etc.
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Research direction
The issue mentions a proposed portable scalar intrinsics header but names no repository files, tests, or entry points. Start by clarifying the intended API and supported WebAssembly instructions, using the cited arm_acle.h precedent for comparison. Done would require an agreed scope and design for the header.
Written by the indexing model from the issue text.
Assessment
- Tech stack
- c, cpp, wasm
- Domain
- compilers
- Issue type
- Feature
- Difficulty
- 5/5
- Estimated time
- Over a week
- Activity status
- Stale
- Clarity
- Needs clarification
- Newbie friendliness
- 25/100