v

vlang.io | Docs | Changelog | Speed | Contributing & compiler design

[![Sponsor][SponsorBadge]][SponsorUrl] [![Patreon][PatreonBadge]][PatreonUrl] [![Discord][DiscordBadge]][DiscordUrl] [![X][XBadge]][XUrl] [![Modules][ModulesBadge]][ModulesUrl]

Key Features of V

• Simplicity: the language can be learned over the course of a weekend
• Fast compilation: ≈110k loc/s with a Clang backend, ≈500k loc/s with native and tcc backends (Intel i5-7500, SSD, no optimization) (demo video)
• Easy to develop: V compiles itself in less than a second
• Performance: as fast as C (V's main backend compiles to human-readable C)
• Safety: no null, no globals, no undefined behavior (wip), immutability by default
• C to V translation (Translating DOOM demo video)
• Hot code reloading
• Flexible memory management. GC by default, manual via v -gc none, arena allocation via v -prealloc, autofree via v -autofree (autofree demo video).
• Cross-platform UI library
• Built-in graphics library
• Easy cross-compilation
• REPL
• Built-in ORM
• Built-in web framework
• C and JavaScript backends
• Great for writing low-level software (Vinix OS)

Stability, future changes, post 1.0 freeze

Despite being at an early development stage, the V language is relatively stable, and doesn't change often. But there will be changes before 1.0. Most changes in the syntax are handled via vfmt automatically.

The V core APIs (primarily the os module) will also have minor changes until they are stabilized in V 1.0. Of course, the APIs will grow after that, but without breaking existing code.

After the 1.0 release V is going to be in the "feature freeze" mode. That means no breaking changes in the language, only bug fixes and performance improvements. Similar to Go.

Will there be V 2.0? Not within a decade after 1.0, perhaps not ever.

To sum it up, unlike many other languages, V is not going to be always changing, with new features introduced and old features modified. It is always going to be a small and simple language, very similar to the way it is right now.

Installing V from source

This is the preferred method.

Linux, macOS, Windows, *BSD, Solaris, WSL, etc.

Usually, installing V is quite simple if you have an environment that already has a functional git installation.

Note: On Windows, run makev.bat instead of make in CMD, or ./makev.bat in PowerShell. Note: On Ubuntu/Debian, you may need to run sudo apt install git build-essential make first.

To get started, execute the following in your terminal/shell:

git clone --depth=1 https://github.com/vlang/v
cd v
make

That should be it, and you should find your V executable at [path to V repo]/v. [path to V repo] can be anywhere.

(Like the note above says, on Windows, use makev.bat, instead of make.)

Now try running ./v run examples/hello_world.v (or v run examples/hello_world.v in cmd shell).

• Trouble? Please see the notes above, and link to Installation Issues for help.

Note: V is being constantly updated. To update V to its latest version, simply run:

v up

[!NOTE] If you run into any trouble, or you have a different operating system or Linux distribution that doesn't install or work immediately, please see Installation Issues and search for your OS and problem.

If you can't find your problem, please add it to an existing discussion if one exists for your OS, or create a new one if a main discussion doesn't yet exist for your OS.

Void Linux

# xbps-install -Su base-devel
# xbps-install libatomic-devel
$ git clone --depth=1 https://github.com/vlang/v
$ cd v
$ make

Docker

git clone --depth=1 https://github.com/vlang/v
cd v
docker build -t vlang .
docker run --rm -it vlang:latest

Docker with Alpine/musl

git clone --depth=1 https://github.com/vlang/v
cd v
docker build -t vlang_alpine - < Dockerfile.alpine
alias with_alpine='docker run -u 1000:1000 --rm -it -v .:/src -w /src vlang_alpine:latest'

Compiling static executables, ready to be copied to a server, that is running another linux distro, without dependencies:

with_alpine v -skip-unused -prod -cc gcc -cflags -static -compress examples/http_server.v
with_alpine v -skip-unused -prod -cc gcc -cflags -static -compress -gc none examples/hello_world.v
ls -la examples/http_server examples/hello_world
file   examples/http_server examples/hello_world
examples/http_server: ELF 64-bit LSB executable, x86-64, version 1 (SYSV), statically linked, no section header
examples/hello_world: ELF 64-bit LSB executable, x86-64, version 1 (SYSV), statically linked, no section header

You should see something like this:

-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root  16612 May 27 17:07 examples/hello_world
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 335308 May 27 17:07 examples/http_server

FreeBSD

On FreeBSD, V needs boehm-gc-threaded package preinstalled. After installing it, you can use the same script, like on Linux/macos:

pkg install boehm-gc-threaded
git clone --depth=1 https://github.com/vlang/v
cd v
make

OpenBSD

On OpenBSD (release 7.8), V needs boehm-gc and openssl-3.5 packages preinstalled. After installing them, use GNU make (installed with gmake package), to build V.

pkg_add boehm-gc openssl%3.5 gmake
git clone --depth=1 https://github.com/vlang/v
cd v
gmake

Termux/Android

On Termux, V needs some packages preinstalled - a working C compiler, also libexecinfo, libgc and libgc-static. After installing them, you can use the same script, like on Linux/macos:

pkg install clang libexecinfo libgc libgc-static tcc make git
pkg update
git clone --depth=1 https://github.com/vlang/v
cd v
make
./v symlink

Note: there is no need for sudo ./v symlink on Termux (and sudo is not installed by default). For faster development builds, keep the Termux tcc package installed; V will use it by default when no compatible bundled thirdparty/tcc binary is available on the host.

C compiler

The Tiny C Compiler (tcc) is downloaded for you by make if there is a compatible version for your system, and installed under the V thirdparty directory.

This compiler is very fast, but does almost no optimizations. It is best for development builds.

For production builds (using the -prod option to V), it's recommended to use clang, gcc, or Microsoft Visual C++. If you are doing development, you most likely already have one of those installed.

Otherwise, follow these instructions:

• Installing a C compiler on Linux and macOS

• Installing a C compiler on Windows

Symlinking

[!NOTE] It is highly recommended, that you put V on your PATH. That saves you the effort to type in the full path to your v executable every time. V provides a convenience v symlink command to do that more easily.

On Unix systems, it creates a v symlink in /usr/local/bin by default. To do that, run:

sudo ./v symlink

You can also pass a different directory, for example:

./v symlink ~/.local/bin

On Windows, start a new shell with administrative privileges, for example by pressing the Windows Key, then type cmd.exe, right-click on its menu entry, and choose Run as administrator. In the new administrative shell, cd to the path where you have compiled V, then type:

v symlink

(or .\v symlink in PowerShell)

You can pass a different directory there too, for example v symlink C:\Users\you\bin.

That will make V available everywhere, by adding it to your PATH. Please restart your shell/editor after that, so that it can pick up the new PATH variable.

[!NOTE] There is no need to run v symlink more than once - v will still be available, even after v up, restarts, and so on. You only need to run it again if you decide to move the V repo folder somewhere else.

Editor/IDE Plugins

• Atom
• CodeLite
• Emacs
• JetBrains
• Sublime Text 3
• Vim
• Vim/Neovim Runtime Files
• VS Code
• zed

To bring IDE functions for the V programming languages to your editor, check out v-analyzer. It provides language server capabilities.

Testing and running the examples

Make sure V can compile itself:

$ v self
$ v
V 0.3.x
Use Ctrl-C or `exit` to exit

>>> println('hello world')
hello world
>>>

v self defaults to -gc none. Pass -gc <mode> if you need a different GC mode.

cd examples
v hello_world.v && ./hello_world    # or simply
v run hello_world.v                 # this builds the program and runs it right away

v run word_counter/word_counter.v word_counter/cinderella.txt
v run news_fetcher.v
v run tetris/tetris.v

When a project has a .vvmrc file, v <project> and v run <project> try to use the requested V binary (for example v0.4.6) before falling back to the current compiler.

Sokol and GG GUI apps/games:

In order to build Tetris or 2048 (or anything else using the sokol or gg graphics modules), you will need to install additional development libraries for your system.

System	Installation method
Debian/Ubuntu based	Run sudo apt install libxi-dev libxcursor-dev libgl-dev libxrandr-dev libasound2-dev
Fedora/RH/CentOS	Run sudo dnf install libXi-devel libXcursor-devel libX11-devel libXrandr-devel libglvnd-devel
NixOS	Add xorg.libX11.dev xorg.libXcursor.dev xorg.libXi.dev xorg.libXrandr.dev libGL.dev to
	to environment.systemPackages

V net.http, net.websocket, v install

The net.http module, the net.websocket module, and the v install command may all use SSL. V comes with a version of mbe