WARNING zig-rc is still WIP. I'm still doing breaking changes

Reference Counting Smart Pointer for Zig

A simple and efficient implementation of a reference counting smart pointer for Zig. This library helps manage the lifetime of heap-allocated objects by automatically tracking references and freeing memory when no references remain.

Features

• Automatic Memory Management: Simplifies memory handling by automatically freeing unused resources.
• Thread-Safe (Optional): Includes optional support for atomic reference counting for multithreaded applications.
• Lightweight: Designed to be minimal and efficient.

Installation

Adding to Your Project

zig fetch --save git+https://github.com/mrtowers/zig-rc

In build.zig:

const rc = b.dependency("zig-rc", .{
    .target = target,
    .optimize = optimize,
});
your_app.root_module.addImport("rc", rc.module("rc"));

Usage

Basic Example

const std = @import("std");
const Rc = @import("rc").Generate(i32, .{});

pub fn main() !void {
    var allocator = std.heap.page_allocator;

    // Create a new reference-counted object
    var ptr = try Rc.init(allocator, 1234);

    // Access the value
    std.debug.print("Value: {}\n", .{ptr.value});

    // Clone the pointer (increments the reference count)
    var ptr_clone = ptr.ref();

    // Both pointers are valid
    std.debug.print("Cloned value: {}\n", .{ptr_clone.value});

    // Release references (automatically decrements the count)
    _ = ptr.deref();
    _ = ptr_clone.deref();
}

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License. See the LICENSE file for details.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Feel free to open issues or submit pull requests.

Also you can donate me here, this helps alot! (mainly becouse i drink a lot of coffee)

Happy coding! 🎉