Build Zig code with the Bazel build system.
Take a look at the planned functionality tracking issue to get a picture of which functionality is already implemented and what is still missing.
Why would you use Bazel to build Zig code, when Zig comes with its own perfectly fine build system?
These Bazel rules are not meant as competition to the Zig build system. If your project fits well within the scope of Zig's build system, in particular, it only uses Zig code and perhaps C/C++ code, then Zig's build system will probably work very well for your use-case.
Bazel is useful for polyglot, monorepo projects, especially if they are very large. If your project involves multiple programming languages and if some of them are not supported by Zig's build system, or if your project involves complex code-generation steps or requires a lot of custom build steps, then Bazel may be a good choice. If your project is already a Bazel project and you want to add Zig code to it then this rule set is for you.
Bazel has builtin support for cross-compilation and build configuration, meaning it can support Zig's cross-compilation and build configuration features well.
The instructions assume basic familiarity with the Bazel build system. Take a look at Bazel's documentation if you are unfamiliar.
Bzlmod is Bazel's new dependency manager. You can read more about it in the Bazel documentation. If you use bzlmod, then you can skip the WORKSPACE section below. Take a look at Bazel's migration guide if you are switching from WORKSPACE to bzlmod.
To install a release version of rules_zig follow the installation instructions given in the corresponding release notes.
To install a development version add the following to your MODULE.bazel file:
bazel_dep(name = "rules_zig")
archive_override(
module_name = "rules_zig",
integrity = "sha256-$SHA256",
strip_prefix = "rules_zig-$COMMIT",
urls = ["https://github.com/aherrmann/rules_zig/archive/$COMMIT.tar.gz"],
)Note, $SHA256 and $COMMIT are placeholders that you need to fill in. Take a
look at the Bazel documentation for further
information.
The old way of managing external dependencies with Bazel is to declare them in your WORKSPACE file. You can read more about it in the Bazel documentation. If you use the WORKSPACE approach, then you can skip the bzlmod section above.
To install a release version of rules_zig follow the installation instructions given in the corresponding release notes.
To install a development version add the following to your WORKSPACE file:
load("@bazel_tools//tools/build_defs/repo:http.bzl", "http_archive")
http_archive(
name = "rules_zig",
sha256 = "$SHA256",
strip_prefix = "rules_zig-$COMMIT",
urls = ["https://github.com/aherrmann/rules_zig/archive/$COMMIT.tar.gz"],
)
load(
"@rules_zig//zig:repositories.bzl",
"rules_zig_dependencies",
"zig_register_toolchains",
)
rules_zig_dependencies()
zig_register_toolchains(
name = "zig",
zig_version = "0.11.0",
)Note, $SHA256 and $COMMIT are placeholders that you need to fill in. Take a
look at the Bazel documentation for further
information.
Examples can be found among the end-to-end tests under
./e2e/workspace.
Generated API documentation for the provided rules is available in
./docs/rules.md.
Documentation for the Zig runfiles library can be found in
./zig/runfiles/guide.md.