Rust to WASM with wasm-pack and React
Compile Rust code to WebAssembly with wasm-pack and consume the generated JS bindings in a React app.
The Rust WASM Toolchain
The standard Rust-to-WASM workflow uses two tools: wasm-pack orchestrates the build (compiling Rust to WASM, running wasm-bindgen, generating the npm package), and wasm-bindgen generates JavaScript bindings that make Rust functions callable as regular JavaScript functions with proper type handling.
wasm-bindgen Attribute
The #[wasm_bindgen] attribute marks Rust functions, structs, and methods for export to JavaScript. Without it, the function is compiled to WASM but not accessible from JavaScript. When you annotate a function with #[wasm_bindgen], wasm-bindgen generates the JavaScript glue code that handles argument and return value conversion.
All lessons in this course
- What Is WebAssembly and Where React Fits
- Loading WASM Modules in React
- Rust to WASM with wasm-pack and React
- WASM Use Cases: Image Processing and Computation