96e593145d
Coming from other languages it might be tempting for programmers to
accidentally leave out the return type instead of returning 'void'.
The error for this used to be
error: invalid token: '{'
pub fn main() {
^
which is misleading. The '{' is expected but only after a return type.
The new message is
error: expected return type (use 'void' to return nothing), found: '{'
pub fn main() {
^
which not only points out the real error but also hints at a (probably)
very common case where someone coming from e.g. Go is used to not
specifying a return type if a function returns nothing and thus forgets
to put 'void' there.
It might seem overkill to hint at the 'void' option but then the
compiler error messages are our user interface to the programmer. We
can be better than other languages in our error messages and leaving
out the return type seems to be a rather clear indication of the above
mentioned issue. Adding this will help more than distract.
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| .github | ||
| ci | ||
| cmake | ||
| deps | ||
| doc | ||
| lib | ||
| src | ||
| test | ||
| tools | ||
| .gitattributes | ||
| .gitignore | ||
| build.zig | ||
| CMakeLists.txt | ||
| CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md | ||
| CONTRIBUTING.md | ||
| LICENSE | ||
| README.md | ||
A general-purpose programming language and toolchain for maintaining robust, optimal, and reusable software.
Resources
- Introduction
- Download & Documentation
- Chapter 0 - Getting Started | ZigLearn.org
- Community
- Contributing
- Code of Conduct
- Frequently Asked Questions
- Community Projects
Installation
- download a pre-built binary
- install from a package manager
- build from source
- bootstrap zig for any target
License
The ultimate goal of the Zig project is to serve users. As a first-order effect, this means users of the compiler, helping programmers to write better software. Even more important, however, are the end-users.
Zig is intended to be used to help end-users accomplish their goals. Zig should be used to empower end-users, never to exploit them financially, or to limit their freedom to interact with hardware or software in any way.
However, such problems are best solved with social norms, not with software licenses. Any attempt to complicate the software license of Zig would risk compromising the value Zig provides.
Therefore, Zig is available under the MIT (Expat) License, and comes with a humble request: use it to make software better serve the needs of end-users.
This project redistributes code from other projects, some of which have other licenses besides MIT. Such licenses are generally similar to the MIT license for practical purposes. See the subdirectories and files inside lib/ for more details.