🛤 Custom Annotation Syntax in the Text Format

[binji]

This is a tracking issue for a post-MVP feature
It will be updated as the issue progresses.

Topic Custom Annotation Syntax in the Text Format
Champion Andreas Rossberg @rossberg
Status in progress
Phase feature proposal
Linked issues none
Linked repositories github.com/WebAssembly/annotations

Details

• The Wasm binary format supports custom sections to enable associating arbitrary meta data with a Wasm module.
• No equivalent exists for the text format. In particular, there is no way to
  • represent custom sections themselves in the text format, cf. Custom sections in the text format design#1153 and https://gist.github.com/binji/d1cfff7faaebb2aa4f8b1c995234e5a0
  • reflect arbitrary names in the text format, cf. [feature] Roundtrip names with strange symbols in text format spec#617
  • express information like for host bindings, cf. https://github.com/WebAssembly/host-bindings/blob/master/proposals/host-bindings/Overview.md
• This proposal adds the ability to decorate a module in textual notarion with arbitrary annotations of the form (@id ...).
• Neither the syntactic shape nor the semantics is prescribed by the Wasm specification, though the Appendix might include a description of optional support for name section annotations and generic custom sections.
• This proposal only affects the text format, nothing else.