rclzig

A ROS 2 client library in the Zig programming language.

Features

• TODO

Why?

This project was created as a personal way to learn Zig. I was intrigued by the features Zig has to offer (e.g. simple, zero-dependency drop-in replacement for C/C++, cross-compilation out-of-the-box). As an exercise, I challenged myself to integrate the language with ROS 2 and this is the result.

Should I use this in production?

No, probably not.

Zig is a very young language (still pre-1.0 release) and not stable. The same applies for rclzig.

Okay, how can I use rclzig?

Install dependencies

• Install ROS 2.
• Install Zig

Build

1. Clone this repository

    git clone https://github.com/jacobperron/rclzig.git
   

2. Source your ROS 2 installation, e.g. ROS Galactic:

    source /opt/ros/galactic/setup.bash
   

3. Build:

    cd rclzig
    zig build
   

4. Optionally, run tests:

    zig build test
   

Try the examples

Run the talker:

zig build talker

In a second shell, run the listener:

zig build listener

Build your own package

TODO

Excellent! How can I contribute?

See CONTRIBUTING.md.

References

Here are some nice resource for learning Zig:

• ziglearn.org is a good starting place.
• Zig’s “In-depth overview” supplements ziglearn.org very well.
• Zig API reference
• These “zig build explained” blog posts provide good info about the build system. Part 2 demonstrates how to build C/C++ code from zig.
• Jumping straight into the source code for Zig can also be enlightening.