README.md

September 7, 2024 · View on GitHub

A unified language for efficient and expressive code.

Welcome to Tau, a programming language designed to be simple yet powerful. This repository contains the compiler for Tau, written in C and utilizing LLVM for backend processing.

Important

The project is in its early stages, and the language is still evolving.

🚀 Features

Syntax

Clean, concise, consistent.
Keywords are short and recognizable (fun, pub, unit etc.).
Similar to other popular languages like C/C++ and Rust.

Types

Strong and strict type system.
Bounds checked arrays.
No null pointers, explicit optionals (?i32).
References (&i32).
unit instead of void.
Structs, unions, enums.

Control Flow

Conditional branches (if-then, else).
Loops (while-do, do-while).
Deferred statements (defer).

Functions

Simple function definitions (fun factorial(x: i32): i32).
External function declarations (extern "C" fun sqrtf(x: f32): f32).

Expressions

Arithmetic, logical, bitwise and comparison operators.
Safe and unsafe optional operators (x?, x!).
Memory related operators (*x, &x).
Special operators (sizeof, alignof).

⚙️ Installation

Prerequisites

CMake: Build tool to configure and manage the build process.
LLVM: Used as the backend for code generation and optimization.

Building the Compiler

Clone the Repository:

git clone https://github.com/Baleg00/tau-lang.git
cd tau-lang

Create a Build Directory:
```
mkdir build
cd build
```
Configure the Project:
```
cmake ..
```
Build the Project:
```
cmake --build .
```
Install:
```
 cmake --install .
```
After installation add the folder (where Tau was installed to) to your environment variables.
Verify Installation:

Verify that Tau was installed correctly by running the following command:
```
tauc --version
```
This should display the installed Tau version.

👏 That's it! You're now ready to start using Tau for your programming projects. If you encounter any problems during installation or have questions, feel free to open an issue.

❤️ Happy coding with Tau!

📦 Usage

Here's how you can create and compile your first Tau program.

Create Source File:

Create a file called hello.tau and add the following code:

extern "C" fun printf(fmt: *u8, ...): i32

fun main(): i32 {
  printf("Hello World!")
  
  return 0
}

Compile:

Compile the Tau source code into an object file.
```
tauc --emit-obj hello.tau
```
Link:

Use a linker to compile the generated object file into an executable.
```
gcc -o hello.exe ./hello.tau.obj
```
Run:

Run the executable! If everything went according to plan, you should see Hello World printed to your screen.
```
./hello.exe
```

🤝 Contributing

If you'd like to contribute to the Tau project, please check out the Contribution Guidelines.

📄 License

This project is licensed under the Apache 2.0 License.