Zigler: Zig NIFs in Elixir

Post by throwawaymaths » Thu, Oct 24, 2024, 9:08 PM UTC

bmitc wrote: post #28

gioazzi wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And then there are port drivers which are the worst of both worlds! Can crash the BEAM and need much more ceremony than NIF to set up but they’re pretty nice to do in Zig[1] as well [1]: https://github.com/borgoat/er_zig_driver

That's true. Haha! There's another option and that's setting up an Erlang node in the other language. The Erlang term format is relatively straightforward. But I'm honestly not sure of the benefit of a node versus just using a port.

Post by kuon » Thu, Oct 24, 2024, 9:43 PM UTC

kansi wrote: post #30

kuon wrote: post #5

I use zig a lot in elixir nif, for things like audio and video processing, it works great. But I do not use zigler as I prefer the code to live in their own codebases. But zigler is really nice and it provides an easy way to do computational heavy tasks in elixir.

> I use zig a lot in elixir nif, for things like audio and video processing Sounds interesting, is it open source? I am interested in seeing how the code layout looks like when mixing Zig and Elixir

        // the_nif.zig

        fn init_imp(
            env: ?*erl.ErlNifEnv,
            argc: c_int,
            argv: [*c]const erl.ERL_NIF_TERM,
        ) !erl.ERL_NIF_TERM {
            if (argc != 0) {
                return error.BadArg;
            }

            return try helpers.make("Hello world");
        }

        export fn media_tools_init(
            env: ?*erl.ErlNifEnv,
            argc: c_int,
            argv: [*c]const erl.ERL_NIF_TERM,
        ) erl.ERL_NIF_TERM {
            return init_imp(env, argc, argv) catch |err|
                return helpers.make_error(env, err);
        }


        var funcs = [_]erl.ErlNifFunc{ erl.ErlNifFunc{
            .name = "init",
            .arity = 1,
            .fptr = media_tools_init,
            .flags = erl.ERL_NIF_DIRTY_JOB_CPU_BOUND, 
        } };

        var entry = erl.ErlNifEntry{
            .major = erl.ERL_NIF_MAJOR_VERSION,
            .minor = erl.ERL_NIF_MINOR_VERSION,
            .name = "Elixir.MediaTools.Stream",
            .num_of_funcs = funcs.len,
            .funcs = &funcs,
            .load = load,
            .reload = null,
            .upgrade = null,
            .unload = null,
            .vm_variant = "beam.vanilla",
            .options = 0,
            .sizeof_ErlNifResourceTypeInit = @sizeOf(erl.ErlNifResourceTypeInit),
            .min_erts = "erts-10.4",
        };

        export fn nif_init() *erl.ErlNifEntry {
            return &entry;
        }

        # the_exlixir_file.ex

        assert "Hello world" == MediaTools.Stream.init()

Post by sbuttgereit » Thu, Oct 24, 2024, 9:48 PM UTC

sodapopcan wrote: post #27

depr wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are they really? Their projects don't look so active

It’s pretty common in the Elixir ecosystem for these types of libraries to not change very much. Elixir itself doesn’t change too much so these libraries stay solid without needing frequent updates. It doesn’t mean people aren’t using them. Some libraries even put disclaimers that they are actively maintained even if they haven’t seen an update in a long time. It’s something that takes some getting used to for some p…

Post by kansi » Thu, Oct 24, 2024, 10:05 PM UTC

kuon wrote: post #33

kansi wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I use zig a lot in elixir nif, for things like audio and video processing Sounds interesting, is it open source? I am interested in seeing how the code layout looks like when mixing Zig and Elixir

I don't have open source code base to share but here it how it looks like: // the_nif.zig fn init_imp( env: ?*erl.ErlNifEnv, argc: c_int, argv: [*c]const erl.ERL_NIF_TERM, ) !erl.ERL_NIF_TERM { if (argc != 0) { return error.BadArg; } return try helpers.make("Hello world"); } export fn media_tools_init( env: ?*erl.ErlNifEnv, argc: c_int, argv: [*c]const erl.ERL_NIF_TERM, ) erl.ERL_NIF_TERM { return init_imp(env, argc,…

Post by kansi » Thu, Oct 24, 2024, 10:13 PM UTC

harrisi wrote: post #25

Zig is also used in an excellent way by burrito[0]. I've also used zig for compiling NIFs written in C/C++/Objective-C, since `zig cc` makes cross-compiling much nicer. I wish zig got more use and attention in the Erlang ecosystem, but rustler seems more popular.