AutoZig

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Safe Rust to Zig FFI with Generics, Async & Stream Support

AutoZig enables safe, ergonomic interop between Rust and Zig code, inspired by autocxx for C++.

Quick Start • Features • Phase 4: Advanced Features • Documentation • Examples • Contributing

🎯 Core Goals

🛡️ Safety First

Zero unsafe in user code - All FFI complexity is handled by the framework

⚡ Performance

Compile-time code generation - Zig code is compiled during cargo build

🔒 Type Safety

Automatic type conversion - Safe bindings between Rust and Zig types

🚀 Developer Experience

Write Zig inline - Embed Zig code directly in your Rust files

🚀 Quick Start

1. Add dependencies

# Cargo.toml
[dependencies]
autozig = "0.1"

[build-dependencies]
autozig-build = "0.1"

2. Create build.rs

// build.rs
fn main() -> anyhow::Result<()> {
    autozig_build::build("src")?;
    Ok(())
}

3. Write your code

// src/main.rs
use autozig::autozig;

autozig! {
    // Zig implementation
    const std = @import("std");
    
    export fn compute_hash(ptr: [*]const u8, len: usize) u64 {
        const data = ptr[0..len];
        var hash: u64 = 0;
        for (data) |byte| {
            hash +%= byte;
        }
        return hash;
    }
    
    ---
    
    // Rust signatures (optional - enables safe wrappers)
    fn compute_hash(data: &[u8]) -> u64;
}

fn main() {
    let data = b"Hello AutoZig";
    let hash = compute_hash(data); // Safe call, no unsafe!
    println!("Hash: {}", hash);
}

✨ Key Features

🎉 Phase 5: WebAssembly Support (NEW!)

Latest Release - AutoZig now supports WebAssembly with Zig + Rust static linking for extreme performance in browsers!

🌐 WASM Static Linking

Compile Zig and Rust into a single WASM file with zero-copy memory sharing:

use wasm_bindgen::prelude::*;
use autozig::autozig;

autozig! {
    // Zig code compiled to WASM
    export fn invert_colors(ptr: [*]u8, len: usize) void {
        var i: usize = 0;
        while (i < len) : (i += 4) {
            ptr[i] = 255 - ptr[i];         // R
            ptr[i+1] = 255 - ptr[i+1];     // G
            ptr[i+2] = 255 - ptr[i+2];     // B
        }
    }
    
    ---
    
    fn invert_colors(data: &mut [u8]);
}

#[wasm_bindgen]
pub fn apply_filter(mut data: Vec<u8>) -> Vec<u8> {
    invert_colors(&mut data);  // Zero-copy call to Zig
    data
}

Features:

✅ Static Linking: Zig + Rust → Single .wasm file
✅ Zero-Copy: Shared linear memory, no data copying
✅ SIMD Optimization: Zig @Vector + WASM SIMD128 instructions
✅ High Performance: 3-5x faster than pure JavaScript, 3x faster than Rust native
✅ Small Binary: Optimized with -O ReleaseFast + wasm-opt

Real-World Performance (Image Filter Benchmark - 2.1 MB image):

Implementation	Processing Time	Throughput	Relative Performance
⚡ AutoZig (Zig SIMD)	0.80 ms	2631.84 MB/s	Baseline (1.00x)
🦀 Rust Native	2.50 ms	842.19 MB/s	3.13x slower
🟨 JavaScript	3.80 ms	554.07 MB/s	4.75x slower

Why AutoZig is faster:

🔥 SIMD128 Instructions: Zig's @Vector(16, u8) compiles to v128.load/sub/store
🚀 Zero Abstractions: Direct memory manipulation with no runtime overhead
⚡ Compiler Optimization: Zig + LLVM's aggressive optimizations
🎯 Saturating Arithmetic: Hardware-accelerated +| and -| operations

Build for WASM:

rustup target add wasm32-unknown-unknown
cargo install wasm-pack
wasm-pack build --target web

📖 Learn More: examples/wasm_filter | docs/PHASE_5_WASM_DESIGN.md

🎉 Phase 4: Advanced Features

Latest Release - AutoZig Phase 1-4 fully complete! New Stream support, zero-copy optimization, SIMD detection and more advanced features!

🌊 Stream Support

异步数据流支持，基于 futures::Stream trait：

use autozig::stream::create_stream;
use futures::StreamExt;

let (tx, stream) = create_stream::<U32Value>();
futures::pin_mut!(stream);
while let Some(result) = stream.next().await {
    println!("Received: {:?}", result);
}

Features:

✅ futures::Stream trait implementation
✅ Async data stream processing
✅ Error handling and state management
✅ Seamless integration with Zig generators

🚀 Zero-Copy Buffer

Zero-copy buffer passing for efficient Zig → Rust data transfer with no overhead:

use autozig::zero_copy::ZeroCopyBuffer;

// Zig generates data, Rust receives with zero-copy
let buffer = ZeroCopyBuffer::from_zig_vec(raw_vec);
let data = buffer.into_vec(); // Zero-copy conversion

Performance:

✅ 1.93x speedup (compared to copying)
✅ Zero additional memory allocation
✅ Completely safe API

🔥 SIMD Detection

Compile-time SIMD feature detection and automatic optimization:

// build.rs
let simd_config = autozig_build::detect_and_report();
println!("Detected SIMD: {}", simd_config.description);

Supported Features:

✅ x86_64: SSE2, SSE4.2, AVX, AVX2, AVX-512
✅ ARM: NEON
✅ Zig automatic vectorization optimization

📖 Learn More: examples/stream_basic | examples/zero_copy | examples/simd_detect

🎉 Phase 3: Generics & Async

AutoZig supports generic monomorphization and async FFI!

🔷 Generic Monomorphization

Write generic Rust functions and let AutoZig generate type-specific Zig implementations:

use autozig::autozig;

autozig! {
    // Zig implementations for each type
    export fn sum_i32(data_ptr: [*]const i32, data_len: usize) i32 {
        var total: i32 = 0;
        var i: usize = 0;
        while (i < data_len) : (i += 1) {
            total += data_ptr[i];
        }
        return total;
    }
    
    export fn sum_f64(data_ptr: [*]const f64, data_len: usize) f64 {
        var total: f64 = 0.0;
        var i: usize = 0;
        while (i < data_len) : (i += 1) {
            total += data_ptr[i];
        }
        return total;
    }
    
    ---
    
    // Declare once, use with multiple types!
    #[monomorphize(i32, f64, u64)]
    fn sum<T>(data: &[T]) -> T;
}

fn main() {
    let ints = vec![1i32, 2, 3, 4, 5];
    let floats = vec![1.5f64, 2.5, 3.5];
    
    println!("Sum of ints: {}", sum_i32(&ints));      // 15
    println!("Sum of floats: {}", sum_f64(&floats));  // 7.5
}

Features:

✅ C++-style template instantiation for Rust generics
✅ Automatic name mangling (process<T> → process_i32, process_f64)
✅ Type substitution engine (handles &[T], &mut [T], nested types)
✅ Zero runtime overhead

⚡ Async FFI with spawn_blocking

Write async Rust APIs backed by synchronous Zig implementations:

use autozig::include_zig;

include_zig!("src/compute.zig", {
    // Declare async functions
    async fn heavy_computation(data: i32) -> i32;
    async fn process_data(input: &[u8]) -> usize;
});

#[tokio::main]
async fn main() {
    // Async API - automatically uses tokio::spawn_blocking
    let result = heavy_computation(42).await;
    println!("Result: {}", result);
    
    // Concurrent execution
    let tasks = vec![
        tokio::spawn(async { heavy_computation(10).await }),
        tokio::spawn(async { heavy_computation(20).await }),
        tokio::spawn(async { heavy_computation(30).await }),
    ];
    
    let results = futures::future::join_all(tasks).await;
    println!("Concurrent results: {:?}", results);
}

Zig side (stays synchronous!):

// src/compute.zig
export fn heavy_computation(data: i32) i32 {
    // Write normal synchronous Zig code
    // No async/await needed!
    return data * 2;
}

Features:

✅ Rust: Async wrappers using tokio::spawn_blocking
✅ Zig: Synchronous implementations (no async/await complexity)
✅ Thread pool offload prevents blocking async runtime
✅ Automatic parameter capture and conversion

📖 Learn More: examples/generics | examples/async

🧪 Zig Test Integration

🎉 Run Zig unit tests as part of your Rust test suite!

AutoZig integrates Zig unit tests into the Rust test framework!

// build.rs
fn main() -> anyhow::Result<()> {
    autozig_build::build("src")?;
    autozig_build::build_tests("zig")?;  // Compile Zig tests
    Ok(())
}

// zig/math.zig
export fn factorial(n: u32) u64 {
    // ... implementation
}

test "factorial basic cases" {
    try std.testing.expectEqual(@as(u64, 120), factorial(5));
}

// tests/zig_tests.rs
#[test]
fn test_math_zig_tests() {
    let test_exe = get_test_exe_path("math");
    let output = Command::new(&test_exe).output().unwrap();
    assert!(output.status.success());
}

Run tests:

cargo test  # Automatically runs Rust and Zig tests

📖 Learn More: docs/ZIG_TEST_INTEGRATION.md

🔗 C Library Integration

🌐 Seamless integration with existing C libraries through Zig wrappers

AutoZig supports calling C functions through Zig wrappers for Rust → Zig → C three-way interoperability:

// build.rs - Add C source files
use autozig_gen_build::Builder;

fn main() {
    Builder::new()
        .with_c_sources(&["src/math.c", "src/utils.c"])
        .build()
        .expect("Failed to build");
}

// wrapper.zig - Zig wraps C functions
extern "c" fn c_add(a: i32, b: i32) i32;

export fn add(a: i32, b: i32) i32 {
    return c_add(a, b);
}

// main.rs - Rust calls through autozig
use autozig::zig;

zig! {
    fn add(a: i32, b: i32) -> i32;
}

fn main() {
    println!("{}", add(10, 20)); // Calls C through Zig
}

Benefits:

✅ Leverage existing C libraries without rewriting
✅ Add Zig enhancements on top of C functions
✅ Type-safe FFI across all three languages
✅ Single build system manages everything

📖 Complete Example: examples/zig-c

📦 External File Support

📁 Import external .zig files into your Rust project

Use the include_zig! macro to reference external .zig files:

use autozig::include_zig;

include_zig!("zig/math.zig", {
    fn factorial(n: u32) -> u64;
    fn fibonacci(n: u32) -> u64;
});

fn main() {
    println!("5! = {}", factorial(5));
    println!("fib(10) = {}", fibonacci(10));
}

🎯 Smart Lowering

🔄 Automatic conversion between Rust high-level types and Zig FFI-compatible types

Rust Type	Zig Signature	Auto Conversion
`&str`	`[*]const u8, usize`	✅
`&[T]`	`[*]const T, usize`	✅
`&mut [T]`	`[*]T, usize`	✅
`String`	`[*]const u8, usize`	✅

🧩 Trait Support

Implement Rust traits with Zig backends

Zero-Sized Types (ZST)

autozig! {
    export fn calculator_add(a: i32, b: i32) i32 { return a + b; }
    
    ---
    
    trait Calculator {
        fn add(&self, a: i32, b: i32) -> i32 => calculator_add;
    }
}

let calc = Calculator::default();
assert_eq!(calc.add(2, 3), 5);

Opaque Pointers (Stateful)

autozig! {
    export fn hasher_new() *anyopaque { /* ... */ }
    export fn hasher_update(ptr: *anyopaque, data: [*]const u8, len: usize) void { /* ... */ }
    export fn hasher_finalize(ptr: *anyopaque) u64 { /* ... */ }
    export fn hasher_destroy(ptr: *anyopaque) void { /* ... */ }
    
    ---
    
    trait Hasher opaque {
        fn new() -> Self => hasher_new;
        fn update(&mut self, data: &[u8]) => hasher_update;
        fn finalize(&self) -> u64 => hasher_finalize;
        fn destroy(self) => hasher_destroy;
    }
}

📖 Learn More: docs/TRAIT_SUPPORT_DESIGN.md

📦 Examples & Verification

📚 15 Working Examples

All examples are fully tested and ready to run:

structs - Structure bindings
enums - Enum types and Result/Option
complex - Complex nested types
smart_lowering - Automatic type conversion
external - External Zig files with include_zig!
trait_calculator - Trait implementation (ZST)
trait_hasher - Trait implementation (Opaque Pointer)
security_tests - Memory safety tests
generics - Generic monomorphization (Phase 3)
async - Async FFI with spawn_blocking (Phase 3)
zig-c - C + Zig + Rust three-way interop
stream_basic - Stream support (Phase 4)
simd_detect - SIMD detection (Phase 4)
zero_copy - Zero-copy optimization (Phase 4)
wasm_filter - WebAssembly image filter with SIMD optimization (Phase 5) 🌐

🌐 Multi-Language Interop: C + Zig + Rust

🎉 NEW! AutoZig now supports full C + Zig + Rust three-way interoperability!

The zig-c example demonstrates a complete calling chain: Rust → Zig → C

use autozig::zig;

zig! {
    // Zig wraps C functions and adds enhancements
    fn add(a: i32, b: i32) -> i32;          // C: c_add()
    fn power(base: i32, exp: u32) -> i32;   // Zig: uses c_multiply()
    fn sum_array(arr: &[i32]) -> i32;       // C: c_sum_array()
    fn average(arr: &[i32]) -> f64;         // Hybrid: C sum + Zig float math
}

fn main() {
    // All tests passing: 4/4 unit tests ✅
    println!("{}", add(10, 20));           // 30
    println!("{}", power(2, 10));          // 1024
    println!("{}", sum_array(&[1,2,3,4,5])); // 15
    println!("{}", average(&[1,2,3,4,5]));   // 3.0
}

Key Features:

✅ C Integration: Use existing C libraries through Zig wrappers
✅ Smart Lowering: &[i32] and &str automatically converted to ptr + len
✅ Type Safety: Full type checking across all three languages
✅ Zero Overhead: Direct FFI calls with no runtime cost
✅ Build System: Single build.rs with with_c_sources() API

Architecture:

Rust (safe API)
  ↓ FFI call
Zig (wrapper + enhancements)
  ↓ extern "c"
C (low-level implementation)

📖 Learn More: examples/zig-c/README.md

🔍 Batch Verification

Run all examples at once:

cd examples
./verify_all.sh

Output:

======================================
  Verification Results Summary
======================================

Total: 15 examples (14 standard + 1 WASM)
Success: 15
Failed: 0
Skipped: 0
[✓] All examples verified successfully! 🎉

📖 Learn More: examples/README.md

📐 Architecture

AutoZig follows a three-stage pipeline for seamless Rust-Zig interop:

┌─────────────┐
│  Rust Code  │
│  with       │
│  autozig!   │
└──────┬──────┘
       │
       ▼
┌─────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  Stage 1: Parsing (Compile Time)        │
│  ─────────────────────────────────      │
│  • Scan .rs files for autozig! macros   │
│  • Extract Zig code                     │
│  • Parse Rust signatures                │
│  • Detect generics & async              │
└──────┬──────────────────────────────────┘
       │
       ▼
┌─────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  Stage 2: Build (build.rs)              │
│  ──────────────────────────────         │
│  • Compile Zig → static library (.a)    │
│  • Generate monomorphized versions      │
│  • Link with Rust binary                │
└──────┬──────────────────────────────────┘
       │
       ▼
┌─────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  Stage 3: Macro Expansion               │
│  ────────────────────────────           │
│  • Generate safe Rust wrappers          │
│  • Handle &str → (ptr, len) conversion  │
│  • Generate async spawn_blocking        │
│  • Include FFI bindings                 │
└──────┬──────────────────────────────────┘
       │
       ▼
┌─────────────┐
│  Safe Rust  │
│  API        │
└─────────────┘

📦 Project Structure

autozig/
├── src/lib.rs           # Main library
├── parser/              # Macro input parser
│   └── src/lib.rs       # Parse generics & async
├── macro/               # Procedural macro
│   └── src/lib.rs       # Code generation (Phase 3)
├── engine/              # Core build engine
│   ├── scanner.rs       # Source code scanner
│   ├── zig_compiler.rs  # Zig compiler wrapper
│   └── type_mapper.rs   # Type conversion logic
├── gen/build/           # Build script helpers
├── examples/            # 14 working examples
│   ├── verify_all.sh    # Batch verification script
│   └── README.md        # Examples documentation
└── docs/                # Technical documentation

🔧 Requirements

Component	Version	Notes
Rust	1.77+	Workspace features required
Zig	0.11+ or 0.12+	Must be in PATH
Tokio	1.0+	Required for async examples

🎓 Comparison with autocxx

Feature	autocxx (C++)	autozig (Zig)
Target Language	C++	Zig
Binding Generator	bindgen + cxx	bindgen
Safe Wrappers	✅	✅
Inline Code	❌	✅
Generics Support	✅	✅
Async Support	❌	✅
Stream Support	❌	✅
Zero-Copy	❌	✅
SIMD Optimization	❌	✅
Build Complexity	High	Medium
Type Safety	Strong	Strong

📚 Type Mapping

Zig Type	Rust Type	Notes
`i8`, `i16`, `i32`, `i64`	`i8`, `i16`, `i32`, `i64`	✅ Direct mapping
`u8`, `u16`, `u32`, `u64`	`u8`, `u16`, `u32`, `u64`	✅ Direct mapping
`f32`, `f64`	`f32`, `f64`	✅ Direct mapping
`bool`	`u8`	⚠️ Zig bool is u8 in C ABI
`[*]const u8`	`*const u8`	🔧 Raw pointer
`[*]const u8` + `len`	`&[u8]`	🛡️ With safe wrapper

🤝 Contributing

Contributions are welcome! This is an experimental project exploring Rust-Zig interop.

Ways to contribute:

🐛 Report bugs and issues
💡 Suggest new features
📖 Improve documentation
🔧 Submit pull requests
🎯 Add new examples

📄 License

Licensed under either of:

Apache License, Version 2.0 (LICENSE-APACHE)
MIT license (LICENSE-MIT)

at your option.

🙏 Acknowledgments

💡 Inspired by autocxx
🔨 Built on bindgen
⚡ Leverages the excellent Zig language
🚀 Async architecture inspired by Tokio best practices

⚠️ Status

✅ Phase 1-5 Complete! - AutoZig 全功能完成，支持 WebAssembly！

Current Status:

✅ Phase 1: Basic FFI bindings (100%)

✅ Phase 2: Smart Lowering & Traits (100%)

✅ Phase 3: Generics & Async (100%)

✅ Phase 4: Stream, Zero-Copy & SIMD (100%)

✅ Phase 5: WebAssembly Support (100%) 🌐

Statistics:

📦 15 working examples

✅ 39/39 tests passing (100%)

📝 22+ documentation files

🌐 Full WASM support with static linking

🚀 Production ready

📖 Further Reading

Core Documentation

📝 Design Notes - Architecture overview
🎯 Quick Start - Get started in 5 minutes
📚 Implementation Summary - Technical deep dive

Phase-Specific Documentation

Feature Documentation

🧪 Zig Test Integration
🗺️ Trait Support Design
🛡️ Security Best Practices
🔒 Zero Unsafe Achievement
📋 Feature Summary - Complete feature checklist

Examples

📂 Examples Directory - 14 working examples
📖 Examples README - Detailed guide
🔍 Batch Verification - Test all examples

Made with ❤️ for the Rust and Zig communities

⭐ Star on GitHub • 🐛 Report Issues • 📖 Read Docs

autozig 0.1.2

AutoZig

Safe Rust to Zig FFI with Generics, Async & Stream Support

🎯 Core Goals

🛡️ Safety First

⚡ Performance

🔒 Type Safety

🚀 Developer Experience

🚀 Quick Start

1. Add dependencies

2. Create build.rs

3. Write your code

✨ Key Features

🎉 Phase 5: WebAssembly Support (NEW!)

🌐 WASM Static Linking

🎉 Phase 4: Advanced Features

🌊 Stream Support

🚀 Zero-Copy Buffer

🔥 SIMD Detection

🎉 Phase 3: Generics & Async

🔷 Generic Monomorphization

⚡ Async FFI with spawn_blocking

🧪 Zig Test Integration

🔗 C Library Integration

📦 External File Support

🎯 Smart Lowering

🧩 Trait Support

Zero-Sized Types (ZST)

Opaque Pointers (Stateful)

📦 Examples & Verification

📚 15 Working Examples

🌐 Multi-Language Interop: C + Zig + Rust

🔍 Batch Verification

📐 Architecture

📦 Project Structure

🔧 Requirements

🎓 Comparison with autocxx

📚 Type Mapping

🤝 Contributing

📄 License

🙏 Acknowledgments

⚠️ Status

📖 Further Reading

Core Documentation

Phase-Specific Documentation

Feature Documentation

Examples