zig/README.md

zig lang

An experiment in writing a low-level programming language with the intent to replace C. Zig intends to be a small language, yet powerful enough to write readable, safe, optimal, and concise code to solve any computing problem.

Goals

• Ability to run arbitrary code at compile time and generate code.
• Completely compatible with C libraries with no wrapper necessary.
• Creating a C library should be a primary use case. Should be easy to export an auto-generated .h file.
• Generics such as containers.
• Do not depend on libc unless explicitly imported.
• First class error code support.
• Include documentation generator.
• Eliminate the need for make, cmake, etc.
• Friendly toward package maintainers.
• Eliminate the need for C headers (when using zig internally).
• Ability to declare dependencies as Git URLS with commit locking (can provide a tag or sha1).
• Rust-style enums.
• Opinionated when it makes life easier.
  • Tab character in source code is a compile error.
  • Whitespace at the end of line is a compile error.
• Resilient to parsing errors to make IDE integration work well.
• Source code is UTF-8.
• Shebang line OK so language can be used for "scripting" as well.

Roadmap

• Hello, world.
  • Build AST
  • Code Gen
• C style comments.
• Unit tests.
• Simple .so library
• How should the Widget use case be solved? In Genesis I'm using C++ and inheritance.

Grammar

Root : FnDecl*
FnDecl : TokenFn TokenSymbol TokenLParen list(ParamDecl, TokenComma, 0) TokenRParen (TokenArrow Type)? Block
ParamDecl : TokenSymbol TokenColon Type
Type : TokenSymbol | PointerType
PointerType : TokenStar (TokenConst | TokenMut) Type
Block : TokenLBrace Statement* Expression? TokenRBrace
Statement : ExpressionStatement | ReturnStatement
ExpressionStatement : Expression TokenSemicolon
ReturnStatement : TokenReturn Expression TokenSemicolon
Expression : TokenNumber | TokenString | FnCall
FnCall : TokenSymbol TokenLParen list(Expression, TokenComma, 0) TokenRParen