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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.

Design Principles

  • Never compromise power or performance.
  • Keep the language small and easy to understand. C programmers should pretty much be able to understand Zig source code without learning anything about Zig.
  • Interoperability with C is crucial. Using C libraries should not require "Zig bindings".

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).
  • Tagged union enum type.
  • 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.
  • Ability to mark functions as test and automatically run them in test mode.
  • Memory zeroed by default, unless you initialize with "uninitialized".

Roadmap

  • Add debugging symbols.
  • Debug/Release mode.
  • C style comments.
  • Unit tests.
  • Simple .so library
  • How should the Widget use case be solved? In Genesis I'm using C++ and inheritance.

Primitive Numeric Types:

zig C equivalent Description
i8 int8_t signed 8-bit integer
u8 uint8_t unsigned 8-bit integer
i16 int16_t signed 16-bit integer
u16 uint16_t unsigned 16-bit integer
i32 int32_t signed 32-bit integer
u32 uint32_t unsigned 32-bit integer
i64 int64_t signed 64-bit integer
u64 uint64_t unsigned 64-bit integer
f32 float 32-bit IEE754 floating point
f64 double 64-bit IEE754 floating point
f128 long double 128-bit IEE754 floating point
isize ssize_t signed pointer sized integer
usize size_t unsigned pointer sized integer

Grammar

Root : many(TopLevelDecl) token(EOF)

TopLevelDecl : FnDef | ExternBlock

ExternBlock : token(Extern) token(LBrace) many(FnProtoDecl) token(RBrace)

FnProto : token(Fn) token(Symbol) ParamDeclList option(token(Arrow) Type)

FnDecl : FnProto token(Semicolon)

FnDef : FnProto Block

ParamDeclList : token(LParen) list(ParamDecl, token(Comma)) token(RParen)

ParamDecl : token(Symbol) token(Colon) Type

Type : token(Symbol) | PointerType | token(Unreachable)

PointerType : token(Star) token(Const) Type  | token(Star) token(Mut) Type

Block : token(LBrace) many(Statement) token(RBrace)

Statement : ExpressionStatement  | ReturnStatement

ExpressionStatement : Expression token(Semicolon)

ReturnStatement : token(Return) Expression token(Semicolon)

Expression : token(Number) | token(String) | token(Unreachable) | FnCall

FnCall : token(Symbol) token(LParen) list(Expression, token(Comma)) token(RParen)