[whatwg] ArrayBuffer and ByteArray questions

[Chris Marrin]

On Sep 8, 2010, at 9:44 AM, Simon Pieters wrote:

> On Wed, 08 Sep 2010 17:22:44 +0200, Chris Marrin <cmarrin at apple.com> wrote:
> 
>> 
>> On Sep 8, 2010, at 12:13 AM, Anne van Kesteren wrote:
>> 
>>> On Wed, 08 Sep 2010 01:09:13 +0200, Jian Li <jianli at chromium.org> wrote:
>>>> Several specs, like File API and WebGL, use ArrayBuffer, while other spec, like XMLHttpRequest Level 2, use ByteArray. Should we change to use the same name all across our specs? Since we define ArrayBuffer in the Typed Arrays spec (
>>>> https://cvs.khronos.org/svn/repos/registry/trunk/public/webgl/doc/spec/TypedArray-spec.html),
>>>> should we favor ArrayBuffer?
>>>> 
>>>> In addition, can we consider adding ArrayBuffer support to BlobBuilder,
>>>> FormData, and XMLHttpRequest.send()?
>>> 
>>> So TC39 is going to leave this thing alone? I.e. are we sure ArrayBuffer is the way of the future?
>> 
>> ArrayBuffer certainly has momentum behind it. It started as a part of the WebGL spec as a way of passing buffers of data of various types (sometimes heterogeneous types) to the WebGL engine. Since then, it has found uses in the Web Audio proposal, the File API and there has been talk in using it as a way to pass data to Web Workers.
> 
> Do you mean WebSockets?

Web Sockets is certainly another candidate, but I meant Web Workers. There have been informal discussions on using ArrayBuffers as a way to safely share binary data between threads. I don't believe anything has been formalized here.

-----
~Chris
cmarrin at apple.com