feat(didc-js): Javascript multi purpose library with candid utils

[keplervital]

Overview
This library adds similar tools as didc but aims to be used in a Javascript environment.

Requirements

• Can encode textual candid into a hex string.
• Can decode a hex string into candid textual representation.
• Can extract the methods of a candid service IDL.

Considered Solutions
We've also considered a similar approach as the candid ui which leverages a canister to expose a query method, but we ruled that out because we want to use this as the user types in a form which would result in many network requests.

Recommended Solution
Leverage candid_parser to create a javascript package exposing a compiled WebAssembly that uses those crates.

Considerations
This is a new library, there's no consumer yet.

[github-actions]

Name	Max Mem (Kb)	Encode	Decode
blob	4_224	20_459_319 ($\textcolor{green}{-0.00\%}$)	12_083_680
btreemap	75_456	4_022_699_205 ($\textcolor{green}{-0.00\%}$)	15_670_422_014
nns	128	2_257_486 ($\textcolor{green}{-0.70\%}$)	5_489_730 ($\textcolor{green}{-0.35\%}$)
nns_list_proposal	1_088	7_052_353 ($\textcolor{green}{-0.55\%}$)	81_898_688 ($\textcolor{red}{0.00\%}$)
option_list	128	7_140_179 ($\textcolor{green}{-0.00\%}$)	25_749_409
text	6_336	20_455_442	17_839_559
variant_list	128	7_142_188	24_354_404
vec_int16	16_704	168_582_443 ($\textcolor{green}{-0.00\%}$)	1_073_765_826

• Parser cost: 18_786_809 ($\textcolor{red}{0.00\%}$)
• Extra args: 3_240_083

Click to see raw report

---------------------------------------------------

Benchmark: blob
  total:
    instructions: 32.55 M (-0.00%) (change within noise threshold)
    heap_increase: 66 pages (no change)
    stable_memory_increase: 0 pages (no change)

  1. Encoding (scope):
    instructions: 20.46 M (-0.00%) (change within noise threshold)
    heap_increase: 66 pages (no change)
    stable_memory_increase: 0 pages (no change)

  2. Decoding (scope):
    instructions: 12.08 M (no change)
    heap_increase: 0 pages (no change)
    stable_memory_increase: 0 pages (no change)

---------------------------------------------------

Benchmark: text
  total:
    instructions: 38.30 M (no change)
    heap_increase: 99 pages (no change)
    stable_memory_increase: 0 pages (no change)

  1. Encoding (scope):
    instructions: 20.46 M (no change)
    heap_increase: 66 pages (no change)
    stable_memory_increase: 0 pages (no change)

  2. Decoding (scope):
    instructions: 17.84 M (no change)
    heap_increase: 33 pages (no change)
    stable_memory_increase: 0 pages (no change)

---------------------------------------------------

Benchmark: vec_int16
  total:
    instructions: 1.24 B (-0.00%) (change within noise threshold)
    heap_increase: 261 pages (no change)
    stable_memory_increase: 0 pages (no change)

  1. Encoding (scope):
    instructions: 168.58 M (-0.00%) (change within noise threshold)
    heap_increase: 261 pages (no change)
    stable_memory_increase: 0 pages (no change)

  2. Decoding (scope):
    instructions: 1.07 B (no change)
    heap_increase: 0 pages (no change)
    stable_memory_increase: 0 pages (no change)

---------------------------------------------------

Benchmark: btreemap
  total:
    instructions: 19.69 B (-0.00%) (change within noise threshold)
    heap_increase: 1179 pages (no change)
    stable_memory_increase: 0 pages (no change)

  1. Encoding (scope):
    instructions: 4.02 B (-0.00%) (change within noise threshold)
    heap_increase: 159 pages (no change)
    stable_memory_increase: 0 pages (no change)

  2. Decoding (scope):
    instructions: 15.67 B (no change)
    heap_increase: 1020 pages (no change)
    stable_memory_increase: 0 pages (no change)

---------------------------------------------------

Benchmark: option_list
  total:
    instructions: 32.89 M (-0.00%) (change within noise threshold)
    heap_increase: 2 pages (no change)
    stable_memory_increase: 0 pages (no change)

  1. Encoding (scope):
    instructions: 7.14 M (-0.00%) (change within noise threshold)
    heap_increase: 0 pages (no change)
    stable_memory_increase: 0 pages (no change)

  2. Decoding (scope):
    instructions: 25.75 M (no change)
    heap_increase: 2 pages (no change)
    stable_memory_increase: 0 pages (no change)

---------------------------------------------------

Benchmark: variant_list
  total:
    instructions: 31.50 M (no change)
    heap_increase: 2 pages (no change)
    stable_memory_increase: 0 pages (no change)

  1. Encoding (scope):
    instructions: 7.14 M (no change)
    heap_increase: 0 pages (no change)
    stable_memory_increase: 0 pages (no change)

  2. Decoding (scope):
    instructions: 24.35 M (no change)
    heap_increase: 2 pages (no change)
    stable_memory_increase: 0 pages (no change)

---------------------------------------------------

Benchmark: nns
  total:
    instructions: 27.37 M (-0.13%) (change within noise threshold)
    heap_increase: 2 pages (no change)
    stable_memory_increase: 0 pages (no change)

  0. Parsing (scope):
    instructions: 18.79 M (0.00%) (change within noise threshold)
    heap_increase: 2 pages (no change)
    stable_memory_increase: 0 pages (no change)

  1. Encoding (scope):
    instructions: 2.26 M (-0.70%) (change within noise threshold)
    heap_increase: 0 pages (no change)
    stable_memory_increase: 0 pages (no change)

  2. Decoding (scope):
    instructions: 5.49 M (-0.35%) (change within noise threshold)
    heap_increase: 0 pages (no change)
    stable_memory_increase: 0 pages (no change)

---------------------------------------------------

Benchmark: nns_list_proposal
  total:
    instructions: 88.95 M (-0.04%) (change within noise threshold)
    heap_increase: 17 pages (no change)
    stable_memory_increase: 0 pages (no change)

  1. Encoding (scope):
    instructions: 7.05 M (-0.55%) (change within noise threshold)
    heap_increase: 3 pages (no change)
    stable_memory_increase: 0 pages (no change)

  2. Decoding (scope):
    instructions: 81.90 M (0.00%) (change within noise threshold)
    heap_increase: 14 pages (no change)
    stable_memory_increase: 0 pages (no change)

---------------------------------------------------

Benchmark: extra_args
  total:
    instructions: 3.24 M (no change)
    heap_increase: 0 pages (no change)
    stable_memory_increase: 0 pages (no change)

---------------------------------------------------
Successfully persisted results to canbench_results.yml

[chenyan-dfinity]

Please consider using https://github.com/dfinity/candid/blob/master/rust/candid_parser/src/bindings/javascript.rs instead of idl2json to derive JSON object. idl2json is incomplete and isn't compatible with agent-js's candid format.

[keplervital]

Please consider using https://github.com/dfinity/candid/blob/master/rust/candid_parser/src/bindings/javascript.rs instead of idl2json to derive JSON object. idl2json is incomplete and isn't compatible with agent-js's candid format.

The JS binding use case is different, this binding gives back JavaScript code iirc, which is not what I’m after.

The target format aims to be a displayable value that we want back, but if you’re not happy with that idl2json lib because it’s incomplete, I’m happy to keep only candid as a target format since it already gives me enough for what I’m building.

[chenyan-dfinity]

Right, it gives back JS code, and if you eval the code, you get a JS value that can be displayed. Candid UI uses that to display JSON format. If it sounds too hacky, we can just remove idl2json.