Module is a global JavaScript object with attributes that
Emscripten-generated code calls at various points in its execution.
Developers can provide an implementation of Module to control the execution
of code. For example, to define how notification messages from Emscripten are
displayed, developers implement the :js:attr:`Module.print` attribute.
When an Emscripten application starts up it looks at the values on the Module
object and applies them. Note that changing the values after startup will not
work in general; in a build with ASSERTIONS enabled you will get an error
in that case.
Note
Module is also used to provide access to Emscripten API functions
(for example :js:func:`ccall`) in a safe way. Any function or runtime method
exported (using EXPORTED_FUNCTIONS for compiled functions, or
EXPORTED_RUNTIME_METHODS for runtime methods like ccall) will be
accessible on the Module object, without minification changing the name,
and the optimizer will make sure to keep the function present (and not remove
it as unused). See the :ref:`relevant FAQ entry<faq-export-stuff>`.
Table of Contents
Use emcc's :ref:`pre-js option<emcc-pre-js>` to add JavaScript code that defines
(or extends) the Module object with the behaviour you need.
When generating only JavaScript (as opposed to HTML), no Module object is
created by default, and the behaviour is entirely defined by the developer. For
example, creating a Module object with the following code will cause all
notifications from the program to be calls to alert().
var Module = { 'print': function(text) { alert('stdout: ' + text) }, 'printErr': function(text) { alert('stderr: ' + text) } };
Important
If you run the :term:`Closure Compiler` on your code (which is
optional, and can be done by --closure 1), you will need quotation marks
around the properties of Module as in the example above. In addition, you
need to run closure on the compiled code together with the declaration of
Module — this is done automatically for a --pre-js file.
When generating HTML, Emscripten creates a Module object with default
methods (see src/shell.html).
In this case you should again use --pre-js, but this time you add properties
to the existing Module object, for example:
Module['print'] = function(text) { alert('stdout: ' + text) };
Note that once the Module object is received by the main JavaScript file, it
will look for Module['print'] and so forth at that time, and use them
accordingly. Changing their values later may not be noticed.
The INCOMING_MODULE_JS_API compiler setting controls which Module
attributes are supported in the emitted JS. This list contains commonly-used
things by default.
Setting this to the smallest possible list for your application will save JS
code size. For example, if you use no Module attributes, you can build
with -sINCOMING_MODULE_JS_API=[]. Or, if you use just a few, you can list
them out, like this: -sINCOMING_MODULE_JS_API=print,printErr.
The following Module attributes affect code execution. Set them to customize
behavior.
.. js:attribute:: Module.arguments The commandline arguments. The value of ``arguments`` contains the values returned if compiled code checks ``argc`` and ``argv``.
.. js:attribute:: Module.buffer
Allows you to provide your own ``ArrayBuffer`` or ``SharedArrayBuffer`` to use
as the memory.
.. note:: This is only supported if ``-sWASM=0``. See ``Module.wasmMemory``
for WebAssembly support.
.. js:attribute:: Module.wasmMemory Allows you to provide your own ``WebAssembly.Memory`` to use as the memory. The properties used to initialize the memory should match the compiler options. For example, if you set ``INITIAL_MEMORY`` to 8MB without memory growth, then the ``wasmMemory`` you provide (if any) should have both the ``'initial'`` and ``'maximum'`` set to 128 (due to WASM page sizes being 64KB).
.. js:attribute:: Module.locateFile
If set, this method will be called when the runtime needs to load a file, such
as a ``.wasm`` WebAssembly file, ``.mem`` memory init file, or a file
generated by the file packager. The function receives the relative path to the
file as configured in build process and a ``prefix`` (path to the main
JavaScript file's directory), and should return the actual URL. This lets you
host file packages or the ``.mem`` file etc. on a different location than the
directory of the JavaScript file (which is the default expectation), for
example if you want to host them on a CDN.
.. note:: ``prefix`` might be an empty string, if ``locateFile`` is called
before we load the main JavaScript. For example, that can happen if a file
package or a memory initializer file are loaded beforehand (perhaps from the
HTML, before it loads the main JavaScript).
.. note:: Several ``Module.*PrefixURL`` options have been deprecated in favor
of ``locateFile``, which includes ``memoryInitializerPrefixURL``,
``pthreadMainPrefixURL``, ``cdInitializerPrefixURL``,
``filePackagePrefixURL``. To update your code, for example if you
used ``Module.memoryInitializerPrefixURL`` equal to
``"https://mycdn.com/memory-init-dir/"``, then you can replace that
with something like:
.. code-block:: javascript
Module['locateFile'] = function(path, prefix) {
// if it's a mem init file, use a custom dir
if (path.endsWith(".mem")) return "https://mycdn.com/memory-init-dir/" + path;
// otherwise, use the default, the prefix (JS file's dir) + the path
return prefix + path;
}
.. js:attribute:: Module.logReadFiles If set, stderr will log when any file is read.
.. js:attribute:: Module.printWithColors Controls whether Emscripten runtime libraries try to print with colors. Currently, this only affects sanitizers. If unset, colors will be enabled if printing to a terminal with ``node``. If set to ``true``, colors will always be used if possible. If set to ``false``, colors will never be used.
.. js:attribute:: Module.onAbort If set, this function is called when abnormal program termination occurs. That can happen due to the C method ``abort()`` being called directly, or called from JavaScript, or due to a fatal problem such as being unable to fetch a necessary file during startup (such as the Wasm binary), etc. After calling this function, program termination occurs (i.e., you can't use this to try to do something else instead of stopping; there is no possibility of recovering here).
.. js:attribute:: Module.onRuntimeInitialized If set, this function is called when the runtime is fully initialized, that is, when compiled code is safe to run, which is after any asynchronous startup operations have completed (such as asynchronous WebAssembly compilation, file preloading, etc.). (An alternative to waiting for this to be called is to wait for ``main()`` to be called.)
.. js:attribute:: Module.noExitRuntime If ``noExitRuntime`` is set to ``true``, the runtime is not shut down after ``main()`` completes. Shutting down the runtime calls shutdown callbacks, for example ``atexit`` calls. If you want to continue using the code after ``main()`` finishes, it is necessary to set this. This is automatically set for you if you use an API command that implies that you want the runtime to not be shut down, for example ``emscripten_set_main_loop``.
.. js:attribute:: Module.noInitialRun If ``noInitialRun`` is set to ``true``, ``main()`` will not be automatically called (you can do so yourself later). The program will still call global initializers, set up memory initialization, and so forth.
.. js:attribute:: Module.preInit A function (or array of functions) that must be called before global initializers run, but after basic initialization of the JavaScript runtime. This is typically used for :ref:`File System operations <Filesystem-API>`.
.. js:attribute:: Module.preinitializedWebGLContext If building with ``-sGL_PREINITIALIZED_CONTEXT`` set, you can set ``Module.preinitializedWebGLContext`` to a precreated instance of a WebGL context, which will be used later when initializing WebGL in C/C++ side. Precreating the GL context is useful if doing GL side loading (shader compilation, texture loading etc.) parallel to other page startup actions, and/or for detecting WebGL feature support, such as GL version or compressed texture support up front on a page before or in parallel to loading up any compiled code.
.. js:attribute:: Module.preRun
A function (or array of functions) to call right before calling ``main()``,
but after defining and setting up the environment, including global
initializers. This is useful, for example, to set up directories and files
using the :ref:`Filesystem-API` — as this needs to happen after the FileSystem
API has been loaded, but before the program starts to run.
.. note:: If code needs to affect global initializers, it should instead be
run using :js:attr:`preInit`.
.. js:attribute:: Module.postRun A function (or array of functions) to call after the program's ``main()`` returns.
.. js:attribute:: Module.print Called when something is printed to standard output (stdout)
.. js:attribute:: Module.printErr Called when something is printed to standard error (stderr)
.. js:attribute:: Module.mainScriptUrlOrBlob Allows pthread workers to independently load up the main file (e.g. main.js) from a URL or blob. New pthread workers need to load the main JavaScript file (e.g. main.js). By default, they load the content of main.js from the URL of main.js. However, if the main.js file was loaded from a Blob, it is not possible to access the URL of the main.js. Also, when main.js is bundled by a Node.JS module bundler (e.g. webpack), the URL of that script can be wrong, the URL after webpack bundler will result in wrong URL like main.chunk.js
.. js:function:: Module.destroy(obj) This method should be called to destroy C++ objects created in JavaScript using :ref:`WebIDL bindings <WebIDL-Binder>`. If this method is not called, an object may be garbage collected, but its destructor will not be called. :param obj: The JavaScript-wrapped C++ object to be destroyed.
.. js:function:: Module.getPreloadedPackage If you want to manually manage the download of .data file packages for custom caching, progress reporting and error handling behavior, you can implement the ``Module.getPreloadedPackage = function(remotePackageName, remotePackageSize)`` callback to provide the contents of the data files back to the file loading scripts. The return value of this callback should be an Arraybuffer with the contents of the downloaded file data. See file ``test/manual_download_data.html`` and the test ``browser.test_preload_file_with_manual_data_download`` for an example.
.. js:function:: Module.instantiateWasm
When targeting WebAssembly, Module.instantiateWasm is an optional
user-implemented callback function that the Emscripten runtime calls to
perform the WebAssembly instantiation action. The callback function will be
called with two parameters, ``imports`` and ``successCallback``. ``imports``
is a JS object which contains all the function imports that need to be passed
to the WebAssembly Module when instantiating, and once instantiated, this
callback function should call ``successCallback()`` with the generated
WebAssembly Instance object.
The instantiation can be performed either synchronously or asynchronously. The
return value of this function should contain the ``exports`` object of the
instantiated WebAssembly Module, or an empty dictionary object ``{}`` if the
instantiation is performed asynchronously, or ``false`` if instantiation
failed.
Overriding the WebAssembly instantiation procedure via this function is useful
when you have other custom asynchronous startup actions or downloads that can
be performed in parallel to WebAssembly compilation. Implementing this
callback allows performing all of these in parallel. See the file
``test/manual_wasm_instantiate.html`` and the test
``browser.test_manual_wasm_instantiate`` for an example of how this construct
works in action.
.. note:: Source maps are currently not supported if overriding
WebAssembly instantiation with Module.instantiateWasm. Providing
Module.instantiateWasm when source maps are enabled can prevent
WebAssembly instantiation from finishing.
.. js:function:: Module.fetchSettings
Override the default settings object used when fetching the Wasm module from
the network. This attribute is expected to be a string and it defaults to ``{
credentials: 'same-origin' }``.