Zig | webinstall.dev

To update or switch versions, run webi zig@stable (or @v0.9, @beta, etc).

Files

These are the files / directories that are created and/or modified with this install:

~/.config/envman/PATH.env
~/.local/opt/zig

Cheat Sheet

zig is two things:

A drop-in cross-compiling toolchain for C and C++ (and Rust and CGo for that matter).

A general purpose systems programming language, like C, but intentional, and with benefit of hindsight.

(and also a nod to Zero Wing)

Philosophy:

The Zen of Zig

Communicate intent precisely.
Edge cases matter.
Favor reading code over writing code.
Only one obvious way to do things.
Runtime crashes are better than bugs.
Compile errors are better than runtime crashes.
Incremental improvements.
Avoid local maximums.
Reduce the amount one must remember.
Focus on code rather than style.
Resource allocation may fail; resource deallocation must succeed.
Memory is a resource.
Together we serve the users.

How to compile C/C++ with Zig

You can use Zig as a drop-in C compiler.

zig cc -o ./hello main.c
zig c++ -o ./hello++ main.cpp

And you can cross-compile effortlessly:

zig cc -o ./hello.exe main.c -target x86_64-windows-gnu
zig c++ -o ./hello.exe main.cpp -target x86_64-windows-gnu

How to create and compile Zig programs

Create a new project directory:

mkdir -p ./zig-hello/
pushd ./zig-hello/

Initialize the project with a new build.zig
```
zig init-exe
```

Build hello.exe for Windows from MacOS or Linux

zig build-exe src/main.zig --name hello -target x86_64-windows-gnu
zig build-exe src/main.zig --name hello -target x86_64-linux-musl
zig build-exe src/main.zig --name hello-arm -target aarch64-linux-musl
zig build-exe src/main.zig --name hello-macos -target x86_64-macos-gnu
zig build-exe src/main.zig --name hello-m1 -target aarch64-macos-gnu

How to list and use Zig's cross-compile targets

zig targets | jq -r '.libc[]'

Here's a few of the common targets:

aarch64-linux-musl
aarch64-windows-gnu
aarch64-macos-gnu
thumb-linux-musleabihf
wasm32-wasi-musl
x86_64-linux-musl
x86_64-windows-gnu
x86_64-macos-gnu

How to cross-compile Rust with Zig

Create a zig-cc-{ARCH-OS} and zig-cpp-{ARCH-OS} wrappers:

cat << EOF >> ~/.local/bin/zig-cc-x86_64-windows-gnu
#!/bin/sh
set -e
set -u
"\${HOME}/.local/opt/zig/zig" cc -target x86_64-windows-gnu \$@
EOF

chmod a+x ~/.local/bin/zig-cc

cat << EOF >> ~/.local/bin/zig-cpp-x86_64-windows-gnu
#!/bin/sh
set -e
set -u
"\${HOME}/.local/opt/zig/zig" c++ -target x86_64-windows-gnu \$@
EOF

chmod a+x ~/.local/bin/zig-cpp

Set the CC, CPP and ZIGTARGET ENVs. For example:

#export ZIGTARGET="x86_64-windows-gnu"
export CC="zig-cc-x86_64-windows-gnu"
export CPP="zig-cpp-x86_64-windows-gnu"

Install the correpsonding Rust toolchains:

rustup target install x86_64-apple-darwin
rustup target install x86_64-unknown-linux-musl
rustup target install aarch64-unknown-linux-musl
rustup target install x86_64-pc-windows-gnu

You may need to also specifically set the linker. For example, with Rust's ~/.cargo/config.toml:

[target.x86_64-apple-darwin]
linker = "zig-cc-x86_64-macos-gnu"

[target.x86_64-unknown-linux-musl]
linker = "zig-cc-x86_64-unknown-linux-musl"

[target.aarch64-unknown-linux-musl]
linker = "zig-cc-aarch64-unknown-linux-musl"

[target.x86_64-pc-windows-gnu]
linker = "zig-cc-x86_64-windows-gnu"

~/.local/bin/zig-create-crossies:

#!/bin/bash
set -e
set -u

my_targets="$(zig targets | jq -r '.libc[]' | sort -u)"

for my_target in $my_targets; do
   cat << EOF >> "${HOME}/.local/bin/zig-cc-${my_target}"
#!/bin/sh
set -e
set -u

"\${HOME}/.local/opt/zig/zig" cc -target ${my_target} \$@
EOF

   chmod a+x "${HOME}/.local/bin/zig-cc-${my_target}"
done

for my_target in $my_targets; do
   cat << EOF >> "${HOME}/.local/bin/zig-cpp-${my_target}"
#!/bin/sh
set -e
set -u

"\${HOME}/.local/opt/zig/zig" c++ -target ${my_target} \$@
EOF

   chmod a+x "${HOME}/.local/bin/zig-cpp-${my_target}"
done

How to cross-compile CGo (Golang) with Zig

See the section above about Rust.

It's almost exactly the same.

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