3743c3e39c
The main goal of this commit is to make it easier to decouple codegen from the linkers by being able to do LLVM codegen without going through the `link.File`; however, this ended up being a nice refactor anyway. Previously, every linker stored an optional `llvm.Object`, which was populated when using LLVM for the ZCU *and* linking an output binary; and `Zcu` also stored an optional `llvm.Object`, which was used only when we needed LLVM for the ZCU (e.g. for `-femit-llvm-bc`) but were not emitting a binary. This situation was incredibly silly. It meant there were N+1 places the LLVM object might be instead of just 1, and it meant that every linker had to start a bunch of methods by checking for an LLVM object, and just dispatching to the corresponding method on *it* instead if it was not `null`. Instead, we now always store the LLVM object on the `Zcu` -- which makes sense, because it corresponds to the object emitted by, well, the Zig Compilation Unit! The linkers now mostly don't make reference to LLVM. `Compilation` makes sure to emit the LLVM object if necessary before calling `flush`, so it is ready for the linker. Also, all of the `link.File` methods which act on the ZCU -- like `updateNav` -- now check for the LLVM object in `link.zig` instead of in every single individual linker implementation. Notably, the change to LLVM emit improves this rather ludicrous call chain in the `-fllvm -flld` case: * Compilation.flush * link.File.flush * link.Elf.flush * link.Elf.linkWithLLD * link.Elf.flushModule * link.emitLlvmObject * Compilation.emitLlvmObject * llvm.Object.emit Replacing it with this one: * Compilation.flush * llvm.Object.emit ...although we do currently still end up in `link.Elf.linkWithLLD` to do the actual linking. The logic for invoking LLD should probably also be unified at least somewhat; I haven't done that in this commit.
A general-purpose programming language and toolchain for maintaining robust, optimal, and reusable software.
Documentation
If you are looking at this README file in a source tree, please refer to the Release Notes, Language Reference, or Standard Library Documentation corresponding to the version of Zig that you are using by following the appropriate link on the download page.
Otherwise, you're looking at a release of Zig, so you can find the language
reference at doc/langref.html, and the standard library documentation by
running zig std, which will open a browser tab.
Installation
A Zig installation is composed of two things:
- The Zig executable
- The lib/ directory
At runtime, the executable searches up the file system for the lib/ directory, relative to itself:
- lib/
- lib/zig/
- ../lib/
- ../lib/zig/
- (and so on)
In other words, you can unpack a release of Zig anywhere, and then begin
using it immediately. There is no need to install it globally, although this
mechanism supports that use case too (i.e. /usr/bin/zig and /usr/lib/zig/).
Building from Source
Ensure you have the required dependencies:
- CMake >= 3.15
- System C/C++ Toolchain
- LLVM, Clang, LLD development libraries == 20.x
Then it is the standard CMake build process:
mkdir build
cd build
cmake ..
make install
For more options, tips, and troubleshooting, please see the Building Zig From Source page on the wiki.
Building from Source without LLVM
In this case, the only system dependency is a C compiler.
cc -o bootstrap bootstrap.c
./bootstrap
This produces a zig2 executable in the current working directory. This is a
"stage2" build of the compiler,
without LLVM extensions, and is
therefore lacking these features:
- Release mode optimizations
- aarch64 machine code backend
- @cImport
- zig translate-c
- Ability to compile assembly files
- Some ELF linking features
- Most COFF/PE linking features
- Some WebAssembly linking features
- Ability to create import libs from def files
- Ability to create static archives from object files
- Ability to compile C, C++, Objective-C, and Objective-C++ files
However, a compiler built this way does provide a C backend, which may be useful for creating system packages of Zig projects using the system C toolchain. In this case, LLVM is not needed!
Furthermore, a compiler built this way provides an LLVM backend that produces bitcode files, which may be compiled into object files via a system Clang package. This can be used to produce system packages of Zig applications without the Zig package dependency on LLVM.
Contributing
Zig is Free and Open Source Software. We welcome bug reports and patches from everyone. However, keep in mind that Zig governance is BDFN (Benevolent Dictator For Now) which means that Andrew Kelley has final say on the design and implementation of everything.
One of the best ways you can contribute to Zig is to start using it for an open-source personal project.
This leads to discovering bugs and helps flesh out use cases, which lead to further design iterations of Zig. Importantly, each issue found this way comes with real world motivations, making it straightforward to explain the reasoning behind proposals and feature requests.
You will be taken much more seriously on the issue tracker if you have a personal project that uses Zig.
The issue label Contributor Friendly exists to help you find issues that are limited in scope and/or knowledge of Zig internals.
Please note that issues labeled Proposal but do not also have the Accepted label are still under consideration, and efforts to implement such a proposal have a high risk of being wasted. If you are interested in a proposal which is still under consideration, please express your interest in the issue tracker, providing extra insights and considerations that others have not yet expressed. The most highly regarded argument in such a discussion is a real world use case.
For more tips, please see the Contributing page on the wiki.
Community
The Zig community is decentralized. Anyone is free to start and maintain their own space for Zig users to gather. There is no concept of "official" or "unofficial". Each gathering place has its own moderators and rules. Users are encouraged to be aware of the social structures of the spaces they inhabit, and work purposefully to facilitate spaces that align with their values.
Please see the Community wiki page for a public listing of social spaces.