Ignis Lang

Caution

Ignis is under active development and evolving. It is currently in its early stages and is an experimental language. APIs and syntax may change between versions.

Ignis is a general-purpose programming language with strong, static typing, and immutability by default. Inspired by TypeScript and Rust, Ignis compiles to C and produces native executables via GCC.

Features (v0.3)

• Strong static typing: i8-i64, u8-u64, f32, f64, boolean, char, str, atom
• Immutability by default: let for immutable, let mut for mutable
• Generics: Type parameters for functions, records, enums, and type aliases
• Records and enums: User-defined types with fields, methods, and variants
• Traits: Lang traits (Drop, Clone, Copy) and user-defined traits
• Pattern matching: match expressions, if let, while let, let else
• Namespaces: Module-level organization with :: access
• References and pointers: &T, &mut T, *T, *mut T
• Control flow: if/else, while, for, for-of, break, continue
• Extension methods: @extension(Type) for adding methods to existing types
• Function overloading: Multiple functions with the same name, different signatures
• Modules: import/export for multi-file projects
• FFI: extern blocks for C interop
• Borrow checking: Rust-style borrow analysis

See docs/LANGUAGE_REFERENCE_CURRENT.md for full language documentation.

Installation

Requirements

• Linux (amd64 for release artifacts)
• GCC, ar (binutils), and make

Quick Install (Linux)

# Install to /usr/local (requires sudo)
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Ignis-lang/ignis/main/scripts/install.sh | sudo bash

# Install to ~/.local (no sudo required)
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Ignis-lang/ignis/main/scripts/install.sh | bash -s -- --prefix ~/.local

Build from Source

# Build from source with the installer
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Ignis-lang/ignis/main/scripts/install.sh | bash -s -- --build

# Or build manually
git clone https://github.com/Ignis-lang/ignis.git
cd ignis
cargo build --release -p ignis
./target/release/ignis --help

Arch Linux

cd scripts
makepkg -si

Nix

# Run from flake
nix run github:Ignis-lang/ignis

# Install in your profile
nix profile install github:Ignis-lang/ignis

# Development shell
nix develop github:Ignis-lang/ignis

Or with traditional Nix:

nix-build
./result/bin/ignis --help

Uninstall

# Uninstall from /usr/local
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Ignis-lang/ignis/main/scripts/uninstall.sh | sudo bash

# Uninstall from ~/.local
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Ignis-lang/ignis/main/scripts/uninstall.sh | bash -s -- --prefix ~/.local

Verify Downloads

sha256sum -c ignis-linux-amd64.tar.gz.sha256

# Optional: verify detached signature if present
gpg --verify ignis-linux-amd64.tar.gz.asc ignis-linux-amd64.tar.gz

Quick Start

Create a file hello.ign:

import Io from "std::io";

function main(): void {
    Io::println("Hello, Ignis!");
    return;
}

Build and run:

# Build the standard library (first time only)
ignis build-std

# Compile and run
ignis build hello.ign
./build/hello

Usage

# Compile a single file
ignis build main.ign

# Compile a project (uses ignis.toml)
ignis build

# Build the standard library
ignis build-std

# Additional options
ignis build main.ign --emit-c out.c          # Output generated C code
ignis build main.ign --dump hir              # Dump HIR for debugging
ignis build main.ign --dump hir --dump-hir main  # Dump HIR for a specific function
ignis build main.ign --debug --debug-trace analyzer
ignis build main.ign --debug                 # Enables -vv logs + debug traces
ignis build main.ign -O                      # Enable optimizations

Example

import Io from "std::io";
import String from "std::string";

record Box<T> {
    value: T;
}

function identity<T>(x: T): T {
    return x;
}

function main(): void {
    let box: Box<i32> = Box { value: 42 };
    let result: i32 = identity<i32>(box.value);
    
    Io::println(String::toString(result));
    
    return;
}

Project Structure

For multi-file projects, create an ignis.toml:

name = "myproject"
version = "0.1.0"

[build]
source_dir = "src"
out_dir = "build"

Contributions

Ignis is open for contributions. You can:

• Report bugs or issues
• Propose new features
• Submit pull requests with improvements