Awesome
Porffor <sup><sub>/ˈpɔrfɔr/ (poor-for)</sup></sub>
A from-scratch experimental AOT optimizing JS/TS -> Wasm/C engine/compiler/runtime in JS. Research project, not yet intended for serious use.<br>
<img src="https://github.com/CanadaHonk/porffor/assets/19228318/de8ad753-8ce3-4dcd-838e-f4d49452f8f8" alt="Screenshot of terminal showing Porffor running and compiling a hello world" width="60%">Design
Porffor is a very unique JS engine, due many wildly different approaches. It is seriously limited, but what it can do, it does pretty well. Key differences:
- 100% AOT compiled (no JIT)
- No constant runtime/preluded code
- Least Wasm imports possible (only I/O)
Porffor is primarily built from scratch, the only thing that is not is the parser (using Acorn). Binaryen/etc is not used, we make final wasm binaries ourself. You could imagine it as compiling a language which is a sub (some things unsupported) and super (new/custom apis) set of javascript. Not based on any particular spec version.
Usage
Expect nothing to work! Only very limited JS is currently supported. See files in bench
for examples.
Install
npm install -g porffor@latest
. It's that easy (hopefully) :)
Trying a REPL
porf
. Just run it with no script file argument.
Running a JS file
porf path/to/script.js
Compiling to Wasm
porf wasm path/to/script.js out.wasm
. Currently it does not use an import standard like WASI, so it is mostly unusable on its own.
Compiling to native binaries
[!WARNING] Compiling to native binaries uses 2c, Porffor's own Wasm -> C compiler, which is experimental.
porf native path/to/script.js out(.exe)
. You can specify the compiler with --compiler=clang|gcc|zig
(clang
by default), and which optimization level to use with --cO=Ofast|O3|O2|O1|O0
(Ofast
by default). Output binaries are also stripped by default.
Compiling to C
[!WARNING] Compiling to C uses 2c, Porffor's own Wasm -> C compiler, which is experimental.
porf c path/to/script.js (out.c)
. When not including an output file, it will be printed to stdout instead.
Profiling a JS file
[!WARNING] Very experimental WIP feature!
porf hotlines path/to/script.js
Debugging a JS file
[!WARNING] Very experimental WIP feature!
porf debug path/to/script.js
Debugging the compiled Wasm of a JS file
[!WARNING] Very experimental WIP feature!
porf dissect path/to/script.js
Options
--parser=acorn|@babel/parser|meriyah|hermes-parser
(default:acorn
) to set which parser to use--parse-types
to enable parsing type annotations/typescript. if-parser
is unset, changes default to@babel/parser
. does not type check--opt-types
to perform optimizations using type annotations as compiler hints. does not type check--valtype=i32|i64|f64
(default:f64
) to set valtype-O0
to disable opt-O1
(default) to enable basic opt (simplify insts, treeshake wasm imports)-O2
to enable advanced opt (partial evaluation). unstable!
Current limitations
- Limited async support (
Promise
andawait
have known bugs) - No variables between scopes (except args and globals)
- No
eval()
/Function()
etc (since it is AOT)
Sub-engines
Asur
Asur is Porffor's own Wasm engine; it is an intentionally simple interpreter written in JS. It is very WIP. See its readme for more details.
Rhemyn
Rhemyn is Porffor's own regex engine; it compiles literal regex to Wasm bytecode AOT (remind you of anything?). It is quite basic and WIP. See its readme for more details.
2c
2c is Porffor's own Wasm -> C compiler, using generated Wasm bytecode and internal info to generate specific and efficient C code. Little boilerplate/preluded code or required external files, just for CLI binaries (not like wasm2c very much).
Versioning
Porffor uses a unique versioning system, here's an example: 0.48.7
. Let's break it down:
0
- major, always0
as Porffor is not ready yet48
- minor, total Test262 pass percentage (rounded half down, eg49.4%
->48
,49.5%
->49
)7
- micro, build number for that minor (incremented each git push)
Performance
For the features it supports most of the time, Porffor is blazingly fast compared to most interpreters and common engines running without JIT. For those with JIT, it is usually slower by default, but can catch up with compiler arguments and typed input, even more so when compiling to native binaries.
Test262
Porffor can run Test262 via some hacks/transforms which remove unsupported features whilst still doing the same asserts (eg simpler error messages using literals only). It currently passes >14% (see latest commit desc for latest and details). Use node test262
to test, it will also show a difference of overall results between the last commit and current results.
Codebase
-
compiler
: contains the compiler itselfbuiltins
: built-in apis written in typescript2c.js
: custom wasm-to-c engineallocator.js
: static/compile-time allocatorassemble.js
: assembles wasm ops and metadata into a spec-compliant wasm module/filebuiltins.js
: all manually written built-ins of the engine (spec, custom. vars, funcs)builtins_object.js
: all the various built-in objects (thinkString
,globalThis
, etc.)builtins_precompiled.js
: dynamically generated builtins from thebuiltins/
foldercodegen.js
: code (wasm) generation, ast -> wasm. The bulk of the effortcyclone.js
: wasm partial constant evaluator (it is fast and dangerous hence "cyclone")disassemble.js
: wasm disassembler using internal debug infoembedding.js
: utils for embedding constsencoding.js
: utils for encoding things as bytes as wasm expectsexpression.js
: mapping most operators to an opcode (advanced are as built-ins egf64_%
)havoc.js
: wasm rewrite library (it wreaks havoc upon wasm bytecode hence "havoc")index.js
: doing all the compiler steps, takes code in, wasm outopt.js
: self-made wasm bytecode optimizerparse.js
: parser simply wrapping acorn (or other acorn-like parsers)pgo.js
: a profile guided optimizerprecompile.js
: the tool to generatebuiltins_precompied.js
prefs.js
: a utility to read command line argumentsprototype.js
: some builtin prototype functions (~legacy)types.js
: definitions for each of the builtin typeswasmSpec.js
: "enums"/info from wasm specwrap.js
: wrapper for compiler which instantiates and produces nice exports
-
runner
: contains utils for running JS with the compilerindex.js
: the main file, you probably want to use thisrepl.js
: basic repl (usesnode:repl
)
-
rhemyn
: contains Rhemyn - our regex engine (used by Porffor)compile.js
: compiles regex ast into wasm bytecode aotparse.js
: own regex parser
-
test262
: test262 runner and utils
Usecases
Currently, Porffor is seriously limited in features and functionality, however it has some key benefits:
- Safety. As Porffor is written in JS, a memory-safe language*, and compiles JS to Wasm, a fully sandboxed environment*, it is quite safe. (* These rely on the underlying implementations being secure. You could also run Wasm, or even Porffor itself, with an interpreter instead of a JIT for bonus security points too.)
- Compiling JS to native binaries. This is still very early!
- Inline Wasm for when you want to beat the compiler in performance, or just want fine grained functionality.
- Potential for SIMD operations and other lower level concepts.
- More in future probably?
Wasm proposals used
Porffor intentionally does not use Wasm proposals which are not commonly implemented yet (eg GC) so it can be used in as many places as possible.
- Multi-value (required)
- Non-trapping float-to-int conversions (required)
- Bulk memory operations (optional, can get away without sometimes)
- Exception handling (optional, only for errors)
- Tail calls (opt-in, off by default)
The name
purple
in Welsh is porffor
. Why purple?
- No other JS engine is purple colored
- Purple is pretty cool
- Purple apparently represents "ambition", which is one word to describe this project