ChakraCore Documentation

WABT is a suite of tools designed for manipulating WebAssembly files with high fidelity and compliance to the specification. Key tools include:

• wat2wasm: Translates WebAssembly text format (.wat) to WebAssembly binary format (.wasm).
• wasm2wat: The inverse of wat2wasm; translates binary format back to text format.
• wasm-objdump: Prints information about a .wasm binary (similar to objdump).
• wasm-interp: A stack-based interpreter that decodes and runs WebAssembly binary files.
• wat-desugar: Parses .wat text (s-expressions, flat, or mixed) and prints the

To clone the repository, ensure you include submodules, as they are required for the testsuite and gtest.

$ git clone --recursive https://github.com/WebAssembly/wabt
$ cd wabt

Building requires CMake.

Using Make

Running make builds a default debug version using the Clang compiler, placing results in out/clang/Debug/.

Note for macOS: You must use CMake version 3.10 or higher.

Available build targets can be customized using the pattern make [compiler]-[build_type]-[configuration].

Compilers:

• gcc
• clang
• gcc-i686
• gcc-fuzz

Build Types:

• debug
• release

Configurations:

• asan (Address Sanitizer)
• msan (Memory Sanitizer)
• lsan (Leak Sanitizer)
• ubsan (Undefined Behavior Sanitizer)
• no-re2c
• no-tests

Example targets:

• make clang-debug
• make gcc-i686-release
• make clang-debug-lsan

The sample requires the following environment:

• Linux: amd64 system with GLIBC 2.17+
• macOS: OSX 10.9+

ChakraCore can be built on Unix-like systems using CMake:

• macOS: Use cmake and the Xcode command line tools.
• Linux: Use cmake and ninja.

To build ChakraCore on Windows (Windows 7 SP1+ or Windows Server 2008 R2+), you need Visual Studio 2015 or 2017 with C++ support installed.

1. Clone the repository:

   git clone https://github.com/Microsoft/ChakraCore.git

2. Open Build\Chakra.Core.sln in Visual Studio.
3. Build the Solution.

ChakraCore is intended to be embedded in your own C/C++ applications via its C API.

Important Note on APIs: ChakraCore is a pure JavaScript engine and does not include external APIs typically found in a web browser or Node.js. For example, DOM APIs like document.write() are not provided. When embedding, you must implement your own input and output APIs. For basic terminal output in the ch host, you can use print().

Building on Windows requires CMake and either Visual Studio (2015 or newer) or MinGW.

To build using CMake from the command line:

1. Create a build directory.
2. Run cmake with the desired configuration, install prefix, and generator.
3. Run cmake --build to compile and install.

Example for a Visual Studio 2015 debug build:

> mkdir build
> cd build
> cmake .. -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=DEBUG -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=..\bin -G "Visual Studio 14 2015"
> cmake --build .. --config DEBUG --target install

To build and run the ChakraCore Hello-world sample for Shared Library on Linux or macOS, use the make command. The sample demonstrates initializing the JavaScript runtime, creating an execution context, running scripts, and handling values using the JavaScript Runtime (JSRT) APIs.

Linux (amd64):

make
./sample.o

macOS (OSX):

make PLATFORM=darwin
./sample.o

If you use the vcpkg dependency manager, you can install ChakraCore with CMake integration using a single command:

vcpkg install chakracore

The ch command-line tool is used to execute JavaScript source files using the ChakraCore engine. It supports various modes including standard execution, background parsing, and Time Travel Debugging (TTD) in specific build configurations.

Basic Usage:

ch [flags] <source file>

Note: Many advanced flags (the [flaglist]) are only available in Debug or Test builds. In Release builds, these flags are not supported.