Wolfram Language Runtime (SDK) demo in Zig

A demo of the new Wolfram Language Runtime written in Zig.

I wrote a Wolfram community post expanding on the details Wolfram Language Runtime (SDK) demo in Zig.

Demo

We will create a standalone executable that runs the Transliterate function from Wolfram Language.

C

$ zig cc main.c -o transliterate-c \
	-L"/Applications/Wolfram.app/Contents/SystemFiles/Components/StandaloneApplicationsSDK/MacOSX-x86-64/" \
	-I"/Applications/Wolfram.app/Contents/SystemFiles/Components/StandaloneApplicationsSDK/MacOSX-x86-64/" \
	-lstdc++ \
	-lStandaloneApplicationsSDK \
	-target x86_64-macos

Notice that even tough I'm compiling in ARM64 (see the section Prerequisites), I'm targeting the x86_64-macos architecture. This is because there is a bug in the current MacOSX-ARM64 StandaloneApplicationsSDK library; though should be fixed soon. The executable will still be able to run because of Rosetta.

Now that the executable is compiled, see the usage:

$ ./transliterate-c
Usage: ./transliterate-c "input"

Use the executable:

$ ./transliterate-c 'しんばし'
shinbashi

Zig

$ zig build-exe main.zig --name transliterate-zig \
	-L"/Applications/Wolfram.app/Contents/SystemFiles/Components/StandaloneApplicationsSDK/MacOSX-x86-64/" \
	-lStandaloneApplicationsSDK \
	-lc++ \
	-target x86_64-macos

Again, notice we are targeting x86_64-macos (as explained in the section above).

Instead of specifying where the header library is (as is the case for the C demo), we are using our handwritten Zig package: wlr.zig.

Now that the executable is compiled, see the usage:

$ ./transliterate-zig
Usage: ./transliterate-zig "input"

Use the executable:

$ ./transliterate-zig 'しんばし'
shinbashi

Prerequisites

Architecture

Tested on:

$ uname -a
Darwin m6502.local 23.5.0 Darwin Kernel Version 23.5.0: Wed May  1 20:12:58 PDT 2024; root:xnu-10063.121.3~5/RELEASE_ARM64_T6000 arm64

Wolfram Language version

Tested on:

In[]:= $Version
Out[]= "14.1.0 for Mac OS X ARM (64-bit) (July 16, 2024)"

Another thing to make sure is to rename the SDK library found in "/Applications/Wolfram.app/Contents/SystemFiles/Components/StandaloneApplicationsSDK/MacOSX-x86-64/" to have the lib prefix (libraries are expected to have them in Unix-like systems). Otherwise, zig cc and zig build-exe won't be able to find the library with -lStandaloneApplicationsSDK.

$ mv /Applications/Wolfram.app/Contents/SystemFiles/Components/StandaloneApplicationsSDK/MacOSX-x86-64/StandaloneApplicationsSDK.a /Applications/Wolfram.app/Contents/SystemFiles/Components/StandaloneApplicationsSDK/MacOSX-x86-64/libStandaloneApplicationsSDK.a

Zig version

Tested on:

$ zig version
0.14.0-dev.823+624fa8523

Zig is not on version 1.0. The language is in constant development and some things might break in the future.

References

• Yet More New Ideas and New Functions: Launching Version 14.1 of Wolfram Language & Mathematica - Standalone Wolfram Language Applications!
• Zig Language Reference
• Zig Standard Library