roc/crates

Roc Internals

Roc has different rust crates for various binaries and libraries. Their roles are briefly described below. If you'd like to learn more, have any questions, or suspect something is out of date, please start a discussion on the Roc Zulip!

You can use cargo doc to generate docs for a specific package; e.g.

cargo doc --package roc_ast --open

ast/ - roc_ast

Code to represent the Abstract Syntax Tree as used by the editor. In contrast to the compiler, the types in this AST do not keep track of the location of the matching code in the source file.

cli/ - roc_cli

The roc binary that brings together all functionality in the Roc toolset.

cli_utils/ - cli_utils

Provides shared code for cli tests and benchmarks.

code_markup/ - roc_code_markup

A markup language to display Roc code in the editor.

compiler/

Compiles .roc files and combines them with their platform into an executable binary. See compiler/README.md for more information.

TODO explain what "compiler frontend" is TODO explain what "compiler backend" is

The compiler includes the following sub-crates;

• roc_alias_analysis Performs analysis and optimizations to remove unneeded reference counts at runtime, and supports in-place mutation.
• arena_pool An implementation of an arena allocator designed for the compiler's workloads.
• roc_build Responsible for coordinating building and linking of a Roc app with its host.
• roc_builtins provides the Roc functions and modules that are implicitly imported into every module. See README.md for more information.
• roc_can Canonicalize a roc abstract syntax tree, resolving symbols, re-ordering definitions, and preparing a module for type inference.
• roc_collections Domain-specific collections created for the needs of the compiler.
• roc_constrain Responsible for building the set of constraints that are used during type inference of a program, and for gathering context needed for pleasant error messages when a type error occurs.
• roc_debug_flags Environment variables that can be toggled to aid debugging of the compiler itself.
• roc_derive provides auto-derivers for builtin abilities like Hash and Decode.
• roc_exhaustive provides exhaustiveness checking for Roc.
• roc_fmt The roc code formatter.
• roc_gen_dev provides the compiler backend to generate Roc binaries fast, for a nice developer experience. See README.md for more information.
• roc_gen_llvm provides the LLVM backend to generate Roc binaries. Used to generate a binary with the fastest possible execution speed.
• roc_gen_wasm provides the WASM backend to generate Roc binaries. See README.md for more information.
• roc_ident Implements data structures used for efficiently representing small strings, like identifiers.
• roc_intern provides generic interners for concurrent and single-thread use cases.
• roc_late_solve provides type unification and solving primitives from the perspective of the compiler backend.
• roc_load Used to load a .roc file and coordinate the compiler pipeline, including parsing, type checking, and code generation.
• roc_load_internal The internal implementation of roc_load, separate from roc_load to support caching.
• roc_module Implements data structures used for efficiently representing unique modules and identifiers in Roc programs.
• roc_mono Roc's main intermediate representation (IR), which is responsible for monomorphization, defunctionalization, inserting ref-count instructions, and transforming a Roc program into a form that is easy to consume by a backend.
• roc_parse Implements the Roc parser, which transforms a textual representation of a Roc program to an abstract syntax tree.
• roc_problem provides types to describe problems that can occur when compiling .roc code.
• roc_region Data structures for storing source-code-location information, used heavily for contextual error messages.
• roc_target provides types and helpers for compiler targets such as default_x86_64.
• roc_serialize provides helpers for serializing and deserializing to/from bytes.
• roc_solve The entry point of Roc's type inference system. Implements type inference and specialization of abilities.
• roc_solve_problem provides types to describe problems that can occur during solving.
• roc_str provides Roc styled collection reference counting. See README.md for more information.
• test_derive Tests Roc's auto-derivers.
• test_gen contains all of Roc's code generation tests. See README.md for more information.
• test_mono Tests Roc's generation of the mono intermediate representation.
• test_mono_macros Macros for use in test_mono.
• roc_types Various representations and utilities for dealing with types in the Roc compiler.
• roc_unify Implements Roc's unification algorithm, the heartstone of Roc's type inference.

docs/ - roc_docs

Generates html documentation from Roc files. Used for roc-lang.org/builtins/Num.

docs_cli/ - roc_docs_cli library and roc-docs binary

Provides a binary that is only used for static build servers.

editor/ - roc_editor

Roc's editor. See README.md for more information.

error_macros/ - roc_error_macros

Provides macros for consistent reporting of errors in Roc's rust code.

glue/ - roc_glue

The roc_glue crate generates code needed for platform hosts to communicate with Roc apps. This tool is not necessary for writing a platform in another language, however, it's a great convenience! Currently supports Rust platforms, and the plan is to support any language via a plugin model.

highlight/ - roc_highlight

Provides syntax highlighting for the editor by transforming a string to markup nodes.

linker/ - roc_linker

Surgical linker that links platforms to Roc applications. We created our own linker for performance, since regular linkers add complexity that is not needed for linking Roc apps. Because we want roc to manage the build system and final linking of the executable, it is significantly less practical to use a regular linker. See README.md for more information.

repl_cli/ - roc_repl_cli

Command Line Interface(CLI) functionality for the Read-Evaluate-Print-Loop (REPL).

repl_eval/ - roc_repl_eval

Provides the functionality for the REPL to evaluate Roc expressions.

repl_expect/ - roc_repl_expect

Supports evaluating expect and printing contextual information when they fail.

repl_test/ - repl_test

Tests the roc REPL.

repl_wasm/ - roc_repl_wasm

Provides a build of the REPL for the Roc website using WebAssembly. See README.md for more information.

reporting/ - roc_reporting

Responsible for generating warning and error messages.

roc_std/ - roc_std

Provides Rust representations of Roc data structures.

test_utils/ - roc_test_utils

Provides testing utility functions for use throughout the Rust code base.

tracing/ - roc_tracing

Provides tracing utility functions for various executable entry points.

utils/ - roc_utils

Provides utility functions used all over the code base.

vendor/

These are files that were originally obtained somewhere else (e.g. crates.io) but which we needed to fork for some Roc-specific reason. See README.md for more information.

wasi-libc-sys/ - wasi_libc_sys

Provides a Rust wrapper for the WebAssembly test platform built on libc and is primarily used for testing purposes.

Building a Roc Application

Below is a simplified diagram to illustrate how a Roc application and host are combined to build an executable file.

Roc Compiler Stages

Below is a simplified diagram to illustrate the different stages of the Roc Compiler.