WebAssembly.Global() constructor

A WebAssembly.Global() constructor creates a new Global object representing a global variable instance, accessible from both JavaScript and importable/exportable across one or more WebAssembly.Module instances. This allows dynamic linking of multiple modules.

Syntax

new WebAssembly.Global(descriptor, value)

Parameters

descriptor

A GlobalDescriptor dictionary object, which contains two properties:

• value: A USVString representing the data type of the global. This can be one of i32, i64, f32, and f64. USVString corresponds to the set of all possible sequences of unicode scalar values. USVString maps to a String when returned in JavaScript; it's generally only used for APIs that perform text processing and need a string of unicode scalar values to operate on. USVString is equivalent to DOMString except for not allowing unpaired surrogate codepoints. Unpaired surrogate codepoints present in USVString are converted by the browser to Unicode 'replacement character' U+FFFD, (�).
• mutable: A boolean value that determines whether the global is mutable or not. By default, this is false.

value

The value the variable contains. This can be any value, as long as its type matches the variable's data type. If no value is specified, a typed 0 value is used, as specified by the DefaultValue algorithm.

Examples

Creating a new Global instance

The following example shows a new global instance being created using the WebAssembly.Global() constructor. It is being defined as a mutable i32 type, with a value of 0.

The value of the global is then changed, first to 42 using the Global.value property, and then to 43 using the incGlobal() function exported out of the global.wasm module (this adds 1 to whatever value is given to it and then returns the new value).

const output = document.getElementById('output');

function assertEq(msg, got, expected) {
  output.innerHTML += `Testing ${msg}: `;
  if (got !== expected)
    output.innerHTML += `FAIL!<br>Got: ${got}<br>Expected: ${expected}<br>`;
  else
    output.innerHTML += `SUCCESS! Got: ${got}<br>`;
}

assertEq("WebAssembly.Global exists", typeof WebAssembly.Global, "function");

const global = new WebAssembly.Global({value:'i32', mutable:true}, 0);

WebAssembly.instantiateStreaming(fetch('global.wasm'), { js: { global } })
.then(({instance}) => {
    assertEq("getting initial value from wasm", instance.exports.getGlobal(), 0);
    global.value = 42;
    assertEq("getting JS-updated value from wasm", instance.exports.getGlobal(), 42);
    instance.exports.incGlobal();
    assertEq("getting wasm-updated value from JS", global.value, 43);
});

Specifications

Browser compatibility

See also

• WebAssembly overview page
• WebAssembly concepts
• Using the WebAssembly JavaScript API
• Import/Export mutable globals proposal