ijsnow / rollbar-sdk

This repository is a WIP proof of concept.

Rollbar SDK

This repository contains a rust library that contains logic to send items to Rollbar APIs. It currently has the following examples:

• A nextjs application that can consume this library built to web assembly.
• A nodejs program that can consume this library built to a native compilation target.
• A c++ program that can consume this library as a dynamic library.

Architecture

rollbar is a rust library that contains code that knows how to communicate with multiple runtimes.

This library uses wasm-pack to build a directory that can be used as a node_module. The standard wasm-bindgen library is used for the glue between the web assembly runtime and the rust runtime. Both of the mentioned tools are supported by the Rust Webassembly Working Group which is supported by a number of companies including Mozilla.

For node, the library uses neon-bindings to facilitate communication between the rust runtime and the node runtime. It's supported by a number of companies including 1Password for their desktop (Electron) application.

For C and other languages that have c compatible ffi's, a c library is made available and a header file is generated using cbindgen.

See it in action

Prerequisites

• Rust must be installed.
• wasm-pack for building to web assembly.
• A modern version of nodejs
• python2 must be executable in your $PATH. It is a dependency of node-gyp which is a tool used by node for managaging native addon modules.
• To handle dependency management for c/c++, this project uses cmake. Ensure you have at least version 3.19 installed.
• To make things easier, this project uses cargo-make to run tasks. Install with:

cargo install --force cargo-make

Next, make a file named .env in the root of this repository and add the following.

POST_TOKEN=<your project's post_client_item here>

Running Wasm

./examples/nextjs contains a nextjs application where this library is consumed as a web assembly module. To see it in action run the following from the rollbar-sdk directory:

cargo make run-nextjs-example

Next, open http://localhost:3000, fiddle with the form fields, and send it 🏂! Once you submit the form, check out the item in the rollbar application.

Running Node

./examples/nodejs contains a simple node program where this library is consumed as a native module. Feel free to fiddle with the program at ./examples/nodejs/index.js. To see it in action, run the following:

cargo make run-nodejs-example

Running c++

./examples/cpp contains a simple c++ program where this library is consumed as a dynamic library. Feel free to fiddle with the program at ./examples/cpp/main.cpp. To see it in action, run the following:

cargo make run-cpp-example

Caveats

So far, I've found some caveats, particularly with the web assembly target:

• Node has support for loading web assembly files, but it is currently experimental. This means that users would have to ensure the experiment flag be added to their node invocation. However, this is not a requirement when build natively with the neon library.
• The wasm-pack build tool and it's underlying support program (wasm-bindgen-cli) don't support compiling to multiple targets. This means that some custom/hacky scripts would have to be added if a separate package for browser and nodejs isn't desired (i.e. just a single rollbar-sdk package that the current rollbar package can consume.
  • rustwasm/wasm-pack#427
  • rustwasm/wasm-pack#313
• Web assembly must be consumed from a module ready application. The consumer's web application must be using a bundler configured to consume web assembly or be served from a server that supports module loading. This won't be a problem for most modern web applications. This also means that the application can't be bundled the number of ways that it currently is here.
• While popular companies such as 1Password use neon, it's ecosystem is still a little slow. Rollbar would likely need to contribute here, which is not inherently a negative!
  • In order to use the standard serde library to make passing around objects easier, I had to use an outdated version of neon (waiting on this PR to be merged).
• For c/c++, consumers of this library will need rust installed when building their application.