141 lines
5.2 KiB
Markdown
141 lines
5.2 KiB
Markdown
# zig lang
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A system programming language intended to replace C.
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Zig intends to remain a small language, yet powerful enough to write
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optimal, readable, safe, and concise code to solve any computing problem.
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Porting a C project to Zig should be a pleasant experience - every C feature
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needs a corresponding Zig feature which solves the problem equivalently or
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better.
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Zig is not afraid to roll the major version number of the language if it
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improves simplicity, fixes poor design decisions, or adds a new feature which
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compromises backward compatibility.
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[Introduction to the Zig Programming Language](http://andrewkelley.me/post/intro-to-zig.html)
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## Existing Features
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* Compatible with C libraries with no wrapper necessary. Directly include
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C .h files and get access to the functions and symbols therein.
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* Compile units do not depend on libc unless explicitly linked.
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* Provides standard library which competes with the C standard library and is
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always compiled against statically in source form.
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* Pointer types do not allow the null value. Instead you can use a maybe type
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which has several syntactic constructs to ensure that the null pointer is
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not missed.
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* Provides an error type with several syntatic constructs which makes writing
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robust code convenient and straightforward. Writing correct code is easier
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than writing buggy code.
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* No header files required. Top level declarations are entirely
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order-independent.
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* Powerful constant expression evaluator. Generally, anything that *can* be
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figured out at compile time *is* figured out at compile time.
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* Tagged union enum type. No more accidentally reading the wrong union field.
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* Easy to parse language so that humans and machines have no trouble with the
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syntax.
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* The binaries produced by Zig have complete debugging information so you can,
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for example, use GDB to debug your software.
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* Debug mode optimizes for fast compilation time and crashing when undefined
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behavior *would* happen.
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* Release mode produces heavily optimized code. What other projects call
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"Link Time Optimization" Zig does automatically.
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* Mark functions as tests and automatically run them with `zig test`.
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* Supported architectures: `x86_64`, `i386`
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* Supported operating systems: linux
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* Friendly toward package maintainers. Reproducible build, bootstrapping
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process carefully documented. Issues filed by package maintainers are
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considered especially important.
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* Easy cross-compiling.
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* Eliminate the preprocessor, but (most) everything you can accomplish with
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the preprocessor, you can accomplish directly in the language.
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## Planned Features
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* In addition to creating executables, creating a C library is a primary use
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case. You can export an auto-generated .h file.
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* Generics so that one can write efficient data structures that work for any
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data type.
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* Eliminate the need for configure, make, cmake, etc.
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* Automatically provide test coverage.
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* Ability to declare dependencies as Git URLS with commit locking (can
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provide a tag or sha256).
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* Include documentation generator.
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* Compiler exposes itself as a library.
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* Support for all popular architectures and operating systems.
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## Building
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### Dependencies
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* cmake >= 2.8.5
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* LLVM == 3.8.0
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* libclang == 3.8.0
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### Debug / Development Build
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If you have gcc or clang installed, you can find out what `ZIG_LIBC_LIB_DIR`,
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`ZIG_LIBC_STATIC_LIB_DIR`, and `ZIG_LIBC_INCLUDE_DIR` should be set to
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(example below).
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```
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mkdir build
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cd build
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cmake .. -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=$(pwd) -DZIG_LIBC_LIB_DIR=$(dirname $(cc -print-file-name=crt1.o)) -DZIG_LIBC_INCLUDE_DIR=$(echo -n | cc -E -x c - -v 2>&1 | grep -B1 "End of search list." | head -n1 | cut -c 2-) -DZIG_LIBC_STATIC_LIB_DIR=$(dirname $(cc -print-file-name=crtbegin.o))
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make
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make install
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./run_tests
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```
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### Release / Install Build
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Once installed, `ZIG_LIBC_LIB_DIR` and `ZIG_LIBC_INCLUDE_DIR` can be overridden
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by the `--libc-lib-dir` and `--libc-include-dir` parameters to the zig binary.
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```
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mkdir build
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cd build
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cmake .. -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -DZIG_LIBC_LIB_DIR=/some/path -DZIG_LIBC_INCLUDE_DIR=/some/path -DZIG_LIBC_STATIC_INCLUDE_DIR=/some/path
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make
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sudo make install
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```
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### Test Coverage
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To see test coverage in Zig, configure with `-DZIG_TEST_COVERAGE=ON` as an
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additional parameter to the Debug build.
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You must have `lcov` installed and available.
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Then `make coverage`.
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With GCC you will get a nice HTML view of the coverage data. With clang,
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the last step will fail, but you can execute
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`llvm-cov gcov $(find CMakeFiles/ -name "*.gcda")` and then inspect the
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produced .gcov files.
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### Troubleshooting
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If you get one of these:
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```
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undefined reference to `_ZNK4llvm17SubtargetFeatures9getStringB5cxx11Ev'
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undefined reference to `llvm::SubtargetFeatures::getString() const'
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```
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This is because of
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[C++'s Dual ABI](https://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/libstdc++/manual/using_dual_abi.html).
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Most likely LLVM was compiled with one compiler while Zig was compiled with a
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different one, for example GCC vs clang.
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To fix this, you have 2 options:
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* Compile Zig with the same compiler that LLVM was compiled with.
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* Add `-DZIG_LLVM_OLD_CXX_ABI=yes` to the cmake configure line.
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## Community
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* IRC chat: `#zig` on Freenode.
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* Reddit: [/r/zig](https://www.reddit.com/r/zig)
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