CODEWITHSUNDEEP
flutterdartrustffi
ch271828n
ch271828n

Reputation: 17567

How to call Rust functions in Flutter (Dart) via FFI, but with convenience and safety?

I know we can call Rust from Flutter/Dart via FFI. But Flutter only allows the C ABI when doing FFI. Therefore, I have to manually write down boilerplate code. Especially, Rust unsafe code - since I have to deal with lots of raw pointers :(

Therefore, is there any approaches to do it in a safe way? We know Rust itself is very safe (since its unique memory management approach), and Dart/Flutter itself is also very safe (since GC). But I do not want the ffi call be the Achilles heel and destroy the safety of my app!

Upvotes: 8

Views: 4240

Answers (1)

ch271828n
ch271828n

Reputation: 17567

There are several ways to do it.

a. JSON/Protobuf-based Approach

The first way that I have used in the production environment for a year is that, you can use JSON or Protobuf to pass all the data between Rust and Dart/Flutter. By doing this, you do not need to write down tons of boilerplate code to allocate/free a String, a List of bytes, a struct/class, etc. All you need to do is to write down one single function that accepts a byte array payload and outputs a byte array result. By saying "one" function, I mean, you can have an action field in your JSON/Protobuf, so calls to indeed different Rust functions can be interleaved into this one thin interface.

Despite its convenience (only a bit of unsafe boilerplate), the drawback is also evident. The serialization and deserialization does not come for free. You will have to pay the CPU time and memory for it, which can be quite large sometimes. Moreover, you cannot easily pass around big objects. For example, if you have an image (you know, at least megabytes of size), serializing it to Protobuf, then deserialize it from Protobuf can be quite a waste of both CPU and memory - useless copies! Even worse, since Flutter/Dart FFI does not support a convenient way of async FFI, you have to make it running in a separate worker isolate - one more memory copy. You can see more here: https://github.com/dart-lang/language/issues/1862 (this is an issue that I opened).

b. Code generator

The second way that I use recently is to write down a code generator. Indeed the code follows several common patterns, such as "allocate - fill data - call FFI - free", etc. So it is not that hard to write a generator to automatically do such kind of things. The idea is to mimic what human beings will do when they write down boilerplate code manually.

I did hope that there already exist some code generator such that I could directly use, but it seemed that none exists... So, go and write it by yourself.

c. Use existing open-source code generator

After I write down the code generator, I guess people may have the same problem as me, so I open-sourced it: https://github.com/fzyzcjy/flutter_rust_bridge

Indeed, my code generator not only solves the problem above, but also have rich type support, allows zero-copy, allows async programming and direct call from main isolate, etc, which can be implemented via code generator but will require lots of boilerplate code if you do it by hand.

Disclaimer: This is a Q&A-style answer to show my thoughts and what I have done on this problem that is critical to my own app in production environment. Indeed I have used the JSON approach since last year, and later refactor into the code generator approach. Hope it also helps other people who faces the same situation!

Upvotes: 11

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