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Zig in WebAssembly

Zig, a systems language, has official support for WebAssembly. Zig’s implementation uses LLVM to supply the compile target.

Available Implementations

Zig’s official implementation supports WebAssembly.

Usage

LLVM has a wasm32-wasi target, so Zig should be usable to build Fermyon Platform applications. It can also be used in the browser.

For the most part, write your Zig code as usual. When compiling, use the target wasm32-wasi.

Pros and Cons

Things we like:

  • The Zig compiler is so nice, we now use it to compile our C as well as our Zig.

Things we’re not big fans of:

  • When we get Wasm-related errors, they can be really terse.

Example

All of our examples follow a documented pattern using common tools.

You must have Zig installed.

Create a new Zig program:

$ mkdir hello-zig
$ cd hello-zig
$ zig init-exe

Inside of the src/ directory is a file named main.zig. Edit it as follows:

const std = @import("std");

pub fn main() !void {
    const stdout = std.io.getStdOut().writer();
    try stdout.print("content-type: text/plain\n\n", .{});
    try stdout.print("Hello, World!\n", .{});
}

Now compile the program:

zig build-exe -O ReleaseSmall -target wasm32-wasi src/main.zig

You can verify that it runs using wasmtime:

$ wasmtime main.wasm
content-type: text/plain

Hello

Now you should have a main.wasm file. Create a spin.toml file to load the Zig program:

spin_version = "1"
authors = ["Fermyon Engineering <engineering@fermyon.com>"]
description = "A Spin example HTTP application for Zig."
name = "spin-hello-zig"
trigger = { type = "http", base = "/" }
version = "1.0.0"

[[component]]
source = "main.wasm"
id = "zig-hello"
[component.trigger]
route = "/zig-hello"
executor = { type = "wagi" } # Note: We are running this using the Wagi spec

Run spin up and then use curl or a web browser to send a request:

Hello, World!

Learn More

Here are some great resources:

Learn More

Here are some great resources:

Interested in learning more?

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