Rux Programming Language

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Rux is a fast, compiled, strongly typed, multi-paradigm programming language.

Project Status

Currently, under development.

Documentation

• Get Started
• Rux Reference
• API Reference
• CLI Reference

Building from Source

Rux is written in modern C++26, so it needs an up-to-date toolchain. If you are new to building C/C++ projects, just follow the steps for your operating system top to bottom — every command can be copied and pasted.

Prerequisites

You need the following tools, all in a recent version:

Tool	Version	Description
Clang	21.1+	The C++26 compiler
CMake	4.2+	Generates the build files
Ninja	1.13+	Runs the actual build, fast
Git	2.52+	Downloads the source code

Note GCC and MSVC will be supported later — please build with Clang.

1. Get the source

git clone https://github.com/rux-lang/Rux.git
cd Rux

2. Install the toolchain and configure

Expand the section for your operating system. Each one installs the tools and then runs CMake to prepare a build directory.

DragonFly BSD

sudo pkg install -y llvm cmake ninja git

cmake -S . -B build -G Ninja -DCMAKE_CXX_COMPILER=clang++

FreeBSD

sudo pkg install -y llvm22 cmake ninja git

cmake -S . -B build -G Ninja -DCMAKE_CXX_COMPILER=clang++22

macOS

Apple's built-in Clang lags behind and lacks full C++26 support, so install the latest LLVM with Homebrew:

brew install llvm cmake ninja git

cmake -S . -B build -G Ninja \
  -DCMAKE_CXX_COMPILER="$(brew --prefix llvm)/bin/clang++"

NetBSD

sudo pkgin -y install clang cmake ninja-build git

cmake -S . -B build -G Ninja -DCMAKE_CXX_COMPILER=clang++

OmniOS

pfexec pkg install clang cmake ninja git

cmake -S . -B build -G Ninja -DCMAKE_CXX_COMPILER=clang++

OpenBSD

doas pkg_add llvm%22 cmake ninja git

cmake -S . -B build -G Ninja -DCMAKE_CXX_COMPILER=clang++

Ubuntu / Debian

# Clang (latest) from the official LLVM apt repository
wget https://apt.llvm.org/llvm.sh
chmod +x llvm.sh
sudo ./llvm.sh 22                 # installs clang++-22

# CMake (latest) and Ninja
sudo snap install cmake --classic
sudo apt install -y ninja-build git

cmake -S . -B build -G Ninja -DCMAKE_CXX_COMPILER=clang++-22

Windows

1. Install Visual Studio 2026 (the free Community edition is fine) with the "Desktop development with C++" workload. This provides the Windows SDK and C runtime that Clang links against.

2. Install the latest Clang, CMake, and Ninja with Scoop. If you don't have Scoop yet, install it from a regular (non-admin) PowerShell:

   Set-ExecutionPolicy -ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned -Scope CurrentUser
   Invoke-RestMethod -Uri https://get.scoop.sh | Invoke-Expression

   Then install the tools (all from Scoop's main bucket):

   scoop install llvm cmake ninja

3. Open the "x64 Native Tools Command Prompt for VS 2026" from the Start menu. This sets up the Windows SDK and C runtime environment that Clang needs to compile and link.

   Prefer your own terminal? Any PowerShell window works too — just initialize the build environment once per session first:

   $vs = & "${env:ProgramFiles(x86)}\Microsoft Visual Studio\Installer\vswhere.exe" -latest -property installationPath
   & "$vs\Common7\Tools\Launch-VsDevShell.ps1" -Arch amd64 -HostArch amd64

4. Configure the build:

   cmake -S . -B build -G Ninja -DCMAKE_CXX_COMPILER=clang++

Tip Depending on how Clang is packaged, the compiler may be named clang++ or carry a version suffix such as clang++-22 or clang++22. Use whichever name your system installed in the -DCMAKE_CXX_COMPILER= argument above.

3. Compile

cmake --build build --config Release

The compiled rux binary is written to the Bin/Release directory (Bin/Release/rux, or Bin\Release\rux.exe on Windows).

4. Verify

Run the binary to confirm it works:

./Bin/Release/rux help          # on Windows: .\Bin\Release\rux.exe help

To use rux from anywhere, copy it to a directory on your PATH (for example /usr/local/bin on Unix-like systems), or add the Bin/Release directory to your PATH.

Community

Here’s how you can get involved.

Contributing

The Rux repository is hosted at rux-lang/Rux on GitHub.

Read the Contributing guide to get started.

License

MIT