Roc platform template for Zig

This is a template for getting started with a roc platform using Zig.

If you have any ideas to improve this template, please let me know. 😀

Developing locally

Step 0. Dev environment

Dependencies:

• Nix package manager nix develop
• Otherwise ensure you have Roc and Zig 0.11.0

Note we can upgrade to zig 0.13.0 when https://github.com/roc-lang/roc/pull/6921 lands. You can do this now if you would prefer to use 0.13.0 just be sure to copy the builtins *.zig from that branch. In future we should have a roc_std zig package that is more suitable for platform development, but the builtins are ok for now.

Step 1. Build the platform

$ roc build.roc

Build the platform with roc build.roc to produce the prebuilt-binaries in platform/.

Note we use -Doptimize=ReleaseFast when building the zig host, to disable the stack probe which causes issues on Intel Macs. You may wish to remove this if you want debug symbols.

Step 2. Run an example

After the platform is build, you can run an example using roc.

$ roc examples/hello.roc
Roc loves Zig

Step 3. Run all the tests

$ ROC=roc EXAMPLES_DIR=examples/ ./ci/all_tests.sh

Packaging the platform

Bundle the platform first using roc build.roc, and then create a bundle with:

$ roc build --bundle .tar.br platform/main.roc

This will package up all the *.roc files a prebuilt host files *.a *.rh etc from platform/ and give you a file like platform/GusyN64cWI5ri8GtTv90sgKKjEtj2i8GXKaWhI0-Tk8.tar.br which you can distribute to other users by hosting online and sharing the URL.

Platform documentation

Generate the documentation with roc docs platform/main.roc and then serve the files in generated-docs/ using a webserver.

Advaced - LLVM IR

You can generate the LLVM IR for the app with roc build --no-link --emit-llvm-ir examples/hello.roc which is an authoritative reference for what roc will generate in the application object.