Add a new target "platform" for WebAssembly (compile libzim to Wasm)

[mossroy]

Compiled with emscripten, to produce libzim.a and other libraries.
libkiwix is probably not necessary : libzim should be enough for now.

It should :

• build the Docker image to compile emscripten (see docker/Dockerfile from https://github.com/mossroy/libzim_wasm , and the README.md)
• run the first steps of Makefile from https://github.com/mossroy/libzim_wasm
• provide the binaries, so that they can be used by kiwix-js (or other projects)

[mossroy]

Maybe there is a better way to avoid compiling useless components (examples etc) of icu and libzim than modifying Makefile.in and meson.build

[mossroy]

When it's ready, it should also compile the bindings, see kiwix/kiwix-js#768

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[mossroy]

Now that kiwix/kiwix-js#513 is solved, it's a major blocker that goes out of the way for libzim wasm.
This ticket would allow to integrate the libzim wasm compilation in the CI, like for other platforms

[kelson42]

@mossroy @mgautierfr OK, we shoukd move forward on this ASAP

[kelson42]

I'm not in favour of expecting developers to compile the libzim themself; for any binding, Javascript included.

IMO, the goal should be to provide a directly usable libzim in Javascript.

From a technical POV, this implies to create & publish the WASM file and a/the corresponding Javascript file allowing to exploit the .wasm file in Javascript. With both files, any browser supporting WebAssembly should be able to exploit the libzim.

@mossroy Do I understand properly? Would that satisfy your request?

[mossroy]

Yes, you understood properly, and that would be perfect.

As I told you, we are not currently blocked, as we can compile by ourself.
But what you propose is the clean way to do it in the mid-term.

It means that the CI would provide all the necessary bindings, like you do for python.
Feel free to move kiwix/kiwix-js#768 to the corresponding github project

[kelson42]

@mossroy Thank you for the confirmation.
@mgautierfr We have to decide if:

• Either this is an output of the Libzim CD
• Or we created a dedicated repository libzim-javascript.

Which one do you want to follow?

[stale]

This issue has been automatically marked as stale because it has not had recent activity. It will be now be reviewed manually. Thank you for your contributions.