Zirric

Zirric is an experimental programming language with a reference implementation in Go. The project is in an early stage and offers the essential building blocks of a modern language:

• Lexer, parser, and AST
• Bytecode compiler and virtual machine
• Standard library with prelude types such as Array, Bool, Int, and String
• Package management via Cavefile and registries
• Documentation on syntax, types, and style in docs/

Language overview

A quick glimpse at core features:

Variables, functions, and data types

let answer = 42
let items = [1, 2, 3]

func greet(name) {
    "Hello, " + name
}

data Person {
    name
    age
}

let alice = Person("Alice", 30)
print(greet(alice.name))

Control flow

Zirric provides both expression and statement variants of if and for. The examples below use the expression forms, which yield values and can be nested inside other expressions.

let message = if answer == 42 { "yes" } else { "no" }

for item <- items {
    print(item)
}

When only side effects are required, use the statement forms, which run for their effects and produce no value:

if answer == 42 {
    print("yes")
} else {
    print("no")
}

for item -> items {
    print(item)
}

An empty for { } forms an infinite loop, useful for servers or event processors. It runs forever and only terminates when a break statement is encountered.

Enums

enum Result {
    data Ok { value }
    data Err { message }
}

let r = Ok(42)

Annotations

Zirric has no interfaces; instead, annotations attach behaviour and metadata to types and functions. They enable generic code to rely on declared capabilities without a formal interface system:

annotation Countable { length(value) }

@Countable({ v -> v.length })
data Bag {
    items
    length
}

Here Countable supplies a length implementation, allowing tools to treat Bag like any other countable collection.

Prerequisites

• Go 1.23 or newer

Getting started

Clone the repository and run the test suite to see the implementation in action:

go test ./...

For more examples and guides, explore the docs/ and stdlib/ directories.

License

This project is licensed under the Mozilla Public License 2.0.