automerge/README.md

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Automerge

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This is a rust implementation of automerge. This repo contains an implementation of the "backend" of the Automerge library, designed to be used via FFI from many different platforms, as well as a native Rust "frontend".

Using automerge-backend-wasm with automerge

To build the wasm backend you'll need to install wasm-pack. Then:

$ cd automerge-backend-wasm
$ yarn release

Once it is built set the new default backend in your js application like this.

const wasmBackend = require(path.resolve(WASM_BACKEND_PATH));
Automerge.setDefaultBackend(wasmBackend);

and export WASM_BACKEND_PATH="$path_to_automerge_backend_wasm/build" before running.

Backend? Frontend?

Automerge is a JSON CRDT, in this sense it is just a data structure with a set of rules about how to merge two different versions of that data structure. However, in practice one often needs two separate roles when writing applications which use the CRDT:

  • A very low latency process, usually running on some kind of UI thread, which records changes made by the user and reflects them in the UI
  • A less latency sensitive process which executes the complex logic of merging changes received from the UI and over the network and send diffs to the frontend to apply

More details can be found here.

Community

Development of automerge rust is currently being coordinated at our slack channel. Come say hi. =)