In the NodeJS docs it states the following:

The WASI API provides an implementation of the WebAssembly System Interface specification. WASI gives sandboxed WebAssembly applications access to the underlying operating system via a collection of POSIX-like functions.

My question is:

What is the biggest benefit of using the WASI API over, say, spawing some other child process or similar methods of running non-nodejs code?

I would have to assume it's faster than spawning a child process, or using some C code with bindings due to the native-api.

Maybe I'm simply misunderstanding the entire idea behind WASI, which is plausable, given that part of what makes WASM so amazing is the ability to use a server-side, full blown programming language on the web (mostly), like all the crazy tools we've seen with Go/Rust.

Is this more so for the benefit of running WASM in node, natively, and again, if so, what are the benefits compared to running child processes?

CodePudding user response：

This question is worded in a way that doesn't make sense, but I'll try to answer what WASI does for node.

Let's start with WebAssembly firt. WebAssembly is an assembly language for a conceptual machine, not a physical one. This means it can be run on a whole lot of different machine architectures.

Just as WebAssembly is an assembly language for a conceptual machine, WebAssembly needs a system interface for a conceptual operating system, not any single operating system. This way, it can be run across all different OSs.

This is what WASI is — a system interface for the WebAssembly platform.