roc/crates/repl_wasm/README.md
Anton-4 0e91eca9c8
website has moved to https://github.com/roc-lang/www.roc-lang.org (#8094)
* website has moved to https://github.com/roc-lang/www.roc-lang.org

* CI remove website build

Signed-off-by: Anton-4 <17049058+Anton-4@users.noreply.github.com>

* remove website build script CI

Signed-off-by: Anton-4 <17049058+Anton-4@users.noreply.github.com>

* additional cleanup

---------

Signed-off-by: Anton-4 <17049058+Anton-4@users.noreply.github.com>
2025-07-22 18:53:15 +02:00

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# Web REPL
## Running locally
### 1. Build the web REPL
This builds the compiler as a `.wasm` file, and generates JS glue code.
It will `cargo install` the `wasm-pack` command line tool if you don't already have it.
```bash
crates/repl_wasm/build-www.sh
```
### 2. Make symlinks to the generated Wasm and JS
For website folder see https://github.com/roc-lang/www.roc-lang.org
```bash
mkdir -p website/public/repl
cd website/public/repl
ln -s ../../../crates/repl_wasm/build/roc_repl_wasm_bg.wasm
ln -s ../../../crates/repl_wasm/build/roc_repl_wasm.js
```
These symlinks are ignored by Git.
> This is a bit different from the production build, where we copy all the files to `website/build/`. But for development, it's convenient to have just one copy of files like `website/public/repl/repl.js`. You can make changes, reload your browser to see them, and commit them to Git, without getting mixed up between different copies of the same file.
### 3. Run a local HTTP server
Browsers won't load .wasm files over the `file://` protocol, so you need to serve the files in `./website/build/` from a local web server.
Any server will do, but this example should work on any system that has Python 3 installed:
```bash
cd website/public
python3 -m http.server
```
### 4. Open your browser
You should be able to find the Roc REPL at <http://127.0.0.1:8000/repl> (or whatever port your web server mentioned when it started up.)
**Warning:** This is work in progress! Not all language features are implemented yet, error messages don't look nice yet, up/down arrows don't work for history, etc.
![Screenshot](./screenshot.png)
## How it works
- User types text into the HTML `<input />` tag
- JS detects the `onchange` event and passes the input text to the Roc compiler WebAssembly module
- Roc compiler WebAssembly module
- Parses the text (currently just a single line)
- Type checks
- Monomorphizes
- Generates WebAssembly using the development backend (not LLVM)
- Returns a slice of bytes to JavaScript
- JavaScript
- Takes the slice of bytes and creates a `WebAssembly.Instance`
- Runs the WebAssembly app
- Gets the memory address of the result and makes a copy of the app's entire memory buffer
- Passes the result address and the memory buffer to the compiler for analysis
- Roc compiler WebAssembly module
- Analyses the bytes of the result, based on the known return type from earlier
- Traverses the copied memory buffer to find any child values
- Produces a user-friendly String and passes it to JavaScript
- JavaScript
- Displays the input and output text on the web page
![High-level diagram](./architecture.png)
## Related crates
There are several directories/packages involved here:
- `website/public/repl/index.html`: The web page with its JavaScript and a build script
- `crates/repl_wasm`: The Rust crate that becomes the "compiler" WebAssembly module
- `crates/repl_eval`: REPL logic shared between `crates/repl_cli` and `crates/repl_wasm`