Bound exports seem to be returning Wasm pointers

[lastmjs]

I'm not sure if I'm doing this incorrectly, but as-bind doesn't seem to be returning the data types that I want, just the Wasm pointers are some other pointer is coming back:

In my AssemblyScript:

export function testString(theString: string): string {
    return theString;
}

In my JavaScript (not exactly my source code as I'm working on integration with Zwitterion):

import { AsBind } from 'as-bind';

(() => {
  const wasm = new Uint8Array([0,97,115,109,1,0,0,0,1,44,8,96,2,127,127,1,127,96,0,0,96,3,...]); // example wasm
  const exports = (await AsBind.instantiate(wasm)).exports;

  console.log(exports.testString('hello world'));
})();

This logs 1888, not hello world. Am I missing something with the API?

[lastmjs]

I think I see the problem, I need to add this file as the entry point when compiling: ./node_modules/as-bind/lib/assembly/as-bind.ts

Hmmm...is there any way that requirement could be dropped? It was confusing and seems like it could be unnecessary.

The file seems simple enough. Could you modify the Wasm that is passed into AsBind.instantiate and just put the compiled code at the front? Or something like that?

[torch2424]

I think I see the problem, I need to add this file as the entry point when compiling: ./node_modules/as-bind/lib/assembly/as-bind.ts

Ah yes! It is a requirement and covered on the quick start in the README. 😄 I should figure out how to make that more apparent (throw a warning or error in the JS lib if we notice it wasn't added? 🤔 )

Hmmm...is there any way that requirement could be dropped? It was confusing and seems like it could be unnecessary.

Unfortunately no. So by default, AssemblyScript will export some of the Class IDs, but not all of them (For example, most typed array classes are not exported by default). Therefore, we need to export them. I also wanted this, as it gives us more freedom to export more things in the future, and requires less lines of code in terms of exporting from the llibrary in the users index.js. Does that make sense? I can send you some old versions of the API where I didn't have this 😄

The file seems simple enough. Could you modify the Wasm that is passed into AsBind.instantiate and just put the compiled code at the front? Or something like that?

So we could totally do that! But it'd have to be like a compile time tool. To do this at runtime would be extremely slow at instantiation time, since we'd have to essentially, parse, and recompile the module at runtime 👍

Let me know what you think! Stoked to see your interest in the library 😄 🎉