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The *.wai format

This is intended to document the *.wai format as it exists today. The goal is to provide an overview to understand what features wai files give you and how they're structured. This isn't intended to be a formal grammar, although it's expected that one day we'll have a formal grammar for *.wai files.

If you're curious to give things a spin try out the online demo of wai-bindgen where you can input *.wai on the left and see output of generated bindings for languages on the right. If you're looking to start you can try out the "markdown" output mode which generates documentation for the input document on the left.

Lexical structure

The wai format is a curly-braced-based format where whitespace is optional (but recommended). It is intended to be easily human readable and supports features like comments, multi-line comments, and custom identifiers. A wai document is parsed as a unicode string, and when stored in a file is expected to be encoded as UTF-8.

Additionally, WAI files must not contain any bidirectional override scalar values, control codes other than newline, carriage return, and horizontal tab, or codepoints that Unicode officially deprecates or strongly discourages.

The current structure of tokens are:

token ::= whitespace
        | comment
        | operator
        | keyword
        | identifier

Whitespace and comments are ignored when parsing structures defined elsewhere here.

Whitespace

A whitespace token in *.wai is a space, a newline, a carriage return, or a tab character:

whitespace ::= ' ' | '\n' | '\r' | '\t'

Comments

A comment token in *.wai is either a line comment preceded with // which ends at the next newline (\n) character or it's a block comment which starts with /* and ends with */. Note that block comments are allowed to be nested and their delimiters must be balanced

comment ::= '//' character-that-isnt-a-newline*
          | '/*' any-unicode-character* '*/'

There is a special type of comment called documentation comment. A doc-comment is either a line comment preceded with /// which ends at the next newline (\n) character or it's a block comment which starts with /** and ends with */. Note that block comments are allowed to be nested and their delimiters must be balanced

doc-comment ::= '///' character-that-isnt-a-newline*
              | '/**' any-unicode-character* '*/'

Operators

There are some common operators in the lexical structure of wai used for various constructs. Note that delimiters such as { and ( must all be balanced.

operator ::= '=' | ',' | ':' | ';' | '(' | ')' | '{' | '}' | '<' | '>' | '*' | '->'

Keywords

Certain identifiers are reserved for use in wai documents and cannot be used bare as an identifier. These are used to help parse the format, and the list of keywords is still in flux at this time but the current set is:

keyword ::= 'use'
          | 'type'
          | 'resource'
          | 'func'
          | 'u8' | 'u16' | 'u32' | 'u64'
          | 's8' | 's16' | 's32' | 's64'
          | 'float32' | 'float64'
          | 'char'
          | 'handle'
          | 'record'
          | 'enum'
          | 'flags'
          | 'variant'
          | 'union'
          | 'bool'
          | 'string'
          | 'option'
          | 'list'
          | 'expected'
          | 'unit'
          | 'as'
          | 'from'
          | 'static'
          | 'interface'
          | 'tuple'
          | 'async'
          | 'future'
          | 'stream'

Top-level items

A wai document is a sequence of items specified at the top level. These items come one after another and it's recommended to separate them with newlines for readability but this isn't required.

Item: use

A use statement enables importing type or resource definitions from other wai documents. The structure of a use statement is:

use * from other-file
use { a, list, of, names } from another-file
use { name as other-name } from yet-another-file

Specifically the structure of this is:

use-item ::= 'use' use-names 'from' id

use-names ::= '*'
            | '{' use-names-list '}'

use-names-list ::= use-names-item
                 | use-names-item ',' use-names-list?

use-names-item ::= id
                 | id 'as' id

Note: Here use-names-list? means at least one use-name-list term.

Items: type

There are a number of methods of defining types in a wai document, and all of the types that can be defined in wai are intended to map directly to types in the interface types specification.

Item: type (alias)

A type statement declares a new named type in the wai document. This name can be later referred to when defining items using this type. This construct is similar to a type alias in other languages

type my-awesome-u32 = u32
type my-complicated-tuple = tuple<u32, s32, string>

Specifically the structure of this is:

type-item ::= 'type' id '=' ty

Item: record (bag of named fields)

A record statement declares a new named structure with named fields. Records are similar to a struct in many languages. Instances of a record always have their fields defined.

record pair {
    x: u32,
    y: u32,
}

record person {
    name: string,
    age: u32,
    has-lego-action-figure: bool,
}

Specifically the structure of this is:

record-item ::= 'record' id '{' record-fields '}'

record-fields ::= record-field
                | record-field ',' record-fields?

record-field ::= id ':' ty

Item: flags (bag-of-bools)

A flags statement defines a new record-like structure where all the fields are booleans. The flags type is distinct from record in that it typically is represented as a bit flags representation in the canonical ABI. For the purposes of type-checking, however, it's simply syntactic sugar for a record-of-booleans.

flags properties {
    lego,
    marvel-superhero,
    supervillan,
}

// type-wise equivalent to:
//
// record properties {
//     lego: bool,
//     marvel-superhero: bool,
//     supervillan: bool,
// }

Specifically the structure of this is:

flags-items ::= 'flags' id '{' flags-fields '}'

flags-fields ::= id,
               | id ',' flags-fields?

Item: variant (one of a set of types)

A variant statement defines a new type where instances of the type match exactly one of the variants listed for the type. This is similar to a "sum" type in algebraic datatypes (or an enum in Rust if you're familiar with it). Variants can be thought of as tagged unions as well.

Each case of a variant can have an optional type associated with it which is present when values have that particular case's tag.

All variant type must have at least one case specified.

variant filter {
    all,
    none,
    some(list<string>),
}

Specifically the structure of this is:

variant-items ::= 'variant' id '{' variant-cases '}'

variant-cases ::= variant-case,
                | variant-case ',' variant-cases?

variant-case ::= id
               | id '(' ty ')'

Item: enum (variant but with no payload)

An enum statement defines a new type which is semantically equivalent to a variant where none of the cases have a payload type. This is special-cased, however, to possibly have a different representation in the language ABIs or have different bindings generated in for languages.

enum color {
    red,
    green,
    blue,
    yellow,
    other,
}

// type-wise equivalent to:
//
// variant color {
//     red,
//     green,
//     blue,
//     yellow,
//     other,
// }

Specifically the structure of this is:

enum-items ::= 'enum' id '{' enum-cases '}'

enum-cases ::= id,
             | id ',' enum-cases?

Item: union (variant but with no case names)

A union statement defines a new type which is semantically equivalent to a variant where all of the cases have a payload type and the case names are numerical. This is special-cased, however, to possibly have a different representation in the language ABIs or have different bindings generated in for languages.

union configuration {
    string,
    list<string>,
}

// type-wise equivalent to:
//
// variant configuration {
//     0(string),
//     1(list<string>),
// }

Specifically the structure of this is:

union-items ::= 'union' id '{' union-cases '}'

union-cases ::= ty,
              | ty ',' union-cases?

Item: func

Functions can also be defined in a *.wai document. Functions have a name, parameters, and results. Functions can optionally also be declared as async functions.

thunk: func()
fibonacci: func(n: u32) -> u32
sleep: async func(ms: u64)

Specifically functions have the structure:

func-item ::= id ':' 'async'? 'func' '(' func-args ')' func-ret

func-args ::= func-arg
            | func-arg ',' func-args?

func-arg ::= id ':' ty

func-ret ::= nil
           | '->' ty

Item: resource

Resources represent a value that has a hidden representation not known to the outside world. This means that the resource is operated on through a "handle" (a pointer of sorts). Resources also have ownership associated with them and languages will have to manage the lifetime of resources manually (they're similar to file descriptors).

Resources can also optionally have functions defined within them which adds an implicit "self" argument as the first argument to each function of the same type of the including resource, unless the function is flagged as static.

resource file-descriptor

resource request {
    static new: func() -> request

    body: async func() -> list<u8>
    headers: func() -> list<string>
}

Specifically resources have the structure:

resource-item ::= 'resource' id resource-contents

resource-contents ::= nil
                    | '{' resource-defs '}'

resource-defs ::= resource-def resource-defs?

resource-def ::= 'static'? func-item

Types

As mentioned previously the intention of wai is to allow defining types corresponding to the interface types specification. Many of the top-level items above are introducing new named types but "anonymous" types are also supported, such as built-ins. For example:

type number = u32
type fallible-function-result = expected<u32, string>
type headers = list<string>

Specifically the following types are available:

ty ::= 'u8' | 'u16' | 'u32' | 'u64'
     | 's8' | 's16' | 's32' | 's64'
     | 'float32' | 'float64'
     | 'char'
     | 'bool'
     | 'string'
     | 'unit'
     | tuple
     | list
     | option
     | expected
     | future
     | stream
     | id

tuple ::= 'tuple' '<' tuple-list '>'
tuple-list ::= ty
             | ty ',' tuple-list?

list ::= 'list' '<' ty '>'

option ::= 'option' '<' ty '>'

expected ::= 'expected' '<' ty ',' ty '>'

future ::= 'future' '<' ty '>'

stream ::= 'stream' '<' ty ',' ty '>'

The tuple type is semantically equivalent to a record with numerical fields, but it frequently can have language-specific meaning so it's provided as a first-class type.

Similarly the option and expected types are semantically equivalent to the variants:

variant option {
    none,
    some(ty),
}

variant expected {
    ok(ok-ty)
    err(err-ty),
}

These types are so frequently used and frequently have language-specific meanings though so they're also provided as first-class types.

Finally the last case of a ty is simply an id which is intended to refer to another type or resource defined in the document. Note that definitions can come through a use statement or they can be defined locally.

Identifiers

Identifiers in wai can be defined with two different forms. The first is a lower-case stream-safe NFC kebab-case identifier where each part delimited by '-'s starts with a XID_Start scalar value with a zero Canonical Combining Class:

foo: func(bar: u32)

red-green-blue: func(r: u32, g: u32, b: u32)

This form can't name identifiers which have the same name as wai keywords, so the second form is the same syntax with the same restrictions as the first, but prefixed with '%':

%foo: func(%bar: u32)

%red-green-blue: func(%r: u32, %g: u32, %b: u32)

// This form also supports identifiers that would otherwise be keywords.
%variant: func(%enum: s32)

Name resolution

A wai document is resolved after parsing to ensure that all names resolve correctly. For example this is not a valid wai document:

type foo = bar  // ERROR: name `bar` not defined

Type references primarily happen through the id production of ty.

Additionally names in a wai document can only be defined once:

type foo = u32
type foo = u64  // ERROR: name `foo` already defined

Names do not need to be defined before they're used (unlike in C or C++), it's ok to define a type after it's used:

type foo = bar

record bar {
    age: u32,
}

Types, however, cannot be recursive:

type foo = foo  // ERROR: cannot refer to itself

record bar1 {
    a: bar2,
}

record bar2 {
    a: bar1,  // ERROR: record cannot refer to itself
}

The intention of wai is that it maps down to interface types, so the goal of name resolution is to effectively create the type section of a wasm module using interface types. The restrictions about self-referential types and such come from how types can be defined in the interface types section. Additionally definitions of named types such as record foo { ... } are intended to map roughly to declarations in the type section of new types.