min: Wasm text instruction

The min instruction is used for getting the lower of two numbers.

Try it

(module
  (import "console" "log" (func $log (param f32)))
  (func $main
    ;; load 10 and 2 onto the stack
    f32.const 10
    f32.const 2

    f32.min ;; calculate the lower number
    call $log ;; log the result
  )
  (start $main)
)
const url = "{%wasm-url%}";
await WebAssembly.instantiateStreaming(fetch(url), { console });

Syntax

value_type.min
value_type

The type of value the instruction is being run on. The following types support min:

  • f32
  • f64
  • v128 interpretations:
    • f32x4
    • f64x2
min

The min instruction. Must always be included after the value_type and a period (.).

Type

[input1, input2] -> [output]
input1

The first input value.

input2

The second input value.

output

The output value.

For a non-SIMD min, the inputs will be basic numeric values such as 3.0 or 3.5, and the output will be the smaller of input1 and input2.

For a SIMD min, the inputs will be v128 value interpretations, for example f32x4 2.0 30 86.9 120. Each lane of the output pushed to the stack is the smaller of the corresponding lanes in the input values.

Binary encoding

Instruction Binary format Example text => binary
f32.min 0x96 f32.min => 0x96
f64.min 0xa4 f64.min => 0xa4
f32x4.min 0xfd 232:u32 f32x4.min => 0xfd 0xe8 0x01
f64x2.min 0xfd 244:u32 f64x2.min => 0xfd 0xf4 0x01

Examples

SIMD min example

In this example, we demonstrate using min to return the smaller value of the same lane index from two SIMD values.

JavaScript

In our script, we grab a reference to a <p> element that we will output our result to, then define an object for import into Wasm containing a single function that writes a value to the output <p>. We then compile and instantiate our Wasm module using the WebAssembly.instantiateStreaming() method, importing the object in the process.

js
const outputElem = document.querySelector("p");

const obj = {
  output(val) {
    outputElem.textContent += val;
  },
};

WebAssembly.instantiateStreaming(fetch("{%wasm-url%}"), {
  obj,
});

Wasm

In our Wasm module, we first import the JavaScript output() function, making sure to declare that it has an f32 parameter. We then declare two SIMD f32x4 values, then use f32x4.min to return a new f32x4 value that contains the lower lane value out of the two inputs in each case. Finally we extract the value stored in lane 3 of the output value using the extract_lane instruction, and output it to the DOM by calling the imported output() function.

wat
(module
  ;; Import output function
  (import "obj" "output" (func $output (param f32)))

  (func $main
    ;; load two SIMD values onto the stack
    v128.const f32x4 20 0 1015 1000
    v128.const f32x4 4 38 15 108

    ;; Return a new f32x4 containing the highest lane value in each case
    f32x4.min
    f32x4.extract_lane 3 ;; Extract a value from the result

    call $output
  )

  (start $main)
)

Result

The output is as follows:

The result is 108. This is because the value stored in lane 3 of the first input value is 1000, and the value stored in lane 3 of the second input value is 108. Since 108 is less than 1000, the new f32x4 value outputted by the f32x4.min instruction has 108 set in lane 3, which we then extract and output to the DOM.

See also