How to make a custom codegen backend/questions whether it's a good idea | Zig Programming Language | Page 1

hybrid oyster Jul 11, 2025, 3:41 PM

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I want to write a virtual machine for zig. My idea is to use AIR instructions as bytecode; from what I can tell they look similar in format to Java's bytecode. Using AIR will save me a lot of work since the information is already there. Now, my idea to get the AIR out of the compiler is to make a custom codegen backend which writes the AIR instructions to a file/files, like Java's class files. Then my vm will read the outputed files.

nimble sequoia Jul 11, 2025, 3:42 PM

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are you prepared to rearchitect your entire VM every few months?

hybrid oyster Jul 11, 2025, 3:42 PM

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I'm doing this for 0.14.1 only for now

nimble sequoia Jul 11, 2025, 3:43 PM

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asking because AIR has absolutely no guarantees about this kind of thing

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and you'd get a much more useful VM if you chose the operations that you actually need

#How to make a custom codegen backend/questions whether it's a good idea