- comparisons of vectors give masks (boolxN): select(m, a, b), m.any/all/count, & | ^ !;
f32x8(list, i, fill) and v.store_part(list, i) for the end of a list (masked load/store)
- v.shuffle(constant lanes), v.lo(), v.hi(), concat(a, b), table.lookup(indices):
pshufb / vpshufb on x86 (SSSE3 and up), tbl on ARM64 (checked in the assembly, LLVM 18 and 21)
- acc.dot_add(a, b): i32 lanes gain 4 byte products each, exactly; vpdpbusd with AVX-VNNI or AVX-512 VNNI,
usdot/sdot/udot on ARM64, the sum written out elsewhere (pmaddwd); run here with all three paths agreeing
- @cpu("avx2,fma") fn: LLVM target-features for one function (+evex512 for AVX-512, which LLVM 18+ needs);
cpu_has("avx2"): CPUID + XGETBV on x86, hwcaps on Linux ARM64, sysctl on macOS; a wide vector can't be passed
between functions with different @cpu (its registers differ), and the compiler says so
- the compiler asks clang which features --cpu means (its predefined macros, cached), so dot_add picks the instruction
- Nix's clang wrapper dropped -march=native in nix-shell (reproduced): finch tells it NIX_ENFORCE_NO_NATIVE=0, shell.nix too,
and warns if --cpu native still made no difference
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01Psc42moPLwP43Cmb9oZqSR
- CI: macOS on Apple Silicon and Intel (macos-15, macos-15-intel); a tag v* attaches every package
(Linux x64/ARM64, macOS ARM64/x64, Windows x64, the VS Code extension) to its release
- vectors: fma is llvm.fmuladd (llvm.fma was a libm call per lane without FMA hardware: 3.5x slower)
- examples/simd.fch: a dot product eight at a time, timed against the plain loop
- README and the English guides: installing on Linux, macOS and Windows; vectors (SIMD); --cpu;
-g is DWARF on Windows too (lldb from llvm-mingw); no more mention of the C++ compiler
- comments left from the C++ compiler (src/target.cpp, src/codegen.cpp, "never frees") brought up to date
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01Psc42moPLwP43Cmb9oZqSR
- finch.toml: name, entry, paths, include, links, libdirs, cflags, ldflags, and [target.windows] etc.;
finch run / build / test with no file use its entry
- import thread: spawn, join, mutex, cpus; atomic_add/sub/load/store/swap/cas built in
- finch fmt [--check]: indentation by { }, trailing spaces, empty lines; also as LSP formatting
- link "x.cpp" (or in finch.toml): built with the C++ compiler, which then links (FINCH_CXX)
- #define RAYWHITE (Color){ 245, 245, 245, 255 } imports as a Color
- push(body) where push takes ptr[Body]: the same as push(addr(body))
- --target android (NDK clang from ANDROID_NDK_HOME, -llog)
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_016GzNP6r8dg6WDxUVZy8wjL
- "x is \(x)", "\(speed, 2)" (two digits after the point), also in """ text
- test "name" { ... } blocks; assert(cond) and assert(cond, why); finch test runs each on its own
- the program's object and its C files (link "x.c") are kept in the cache until they or their headers change
- runtime errors show the calls that led there (finch run, finch test, -g, -O0, --trace)
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_016GzNP6r8dg6WDxUVZy8wjL
- const NAME = value (numbers, text, other constants; typed: const f32 G = 9.8), also module.NAME
- x := if c { a } else { b }
- """ ... """: the closing quotes' indentation goes from every line
- min, max, abs, clamp for any numbers, unless your own function has the name
- import ui/button (a module in a folder), import path as p
- fs: read_bytes, write_bytes, exists, is_dir, mkdir (with parents), list, remove_dir, data_dir(app)
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_016GzNP6r8dg6WDxUVZy8wjL
Also frees main's args and the message of a failing main (valgrind was not clean on two tests).
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
export fn name(...) is a C function of a library; build --shared makes lib<name>.so with no main and a
finch_module_on_fatal(handler) the host can take runtime errors over with. Ported from the embed work (the
runtime, its test and the docs are that work's; the compiler side is new).
The driver reads FINCH_PATH (more module folders), FINCH_RT (the runtime's file) and FINCH_CC (the clang).
tests/boot.sh also runs tests/shared.sh with the compiler under test. 41 passed.
- fn Struct.method(...) with self by reference, also on C structs
- map[K]V: insertion-ordered hash maps, literals, m[k] += 1, has/get/remove/keys/values
- -> T! / -> !, return error(...), or <value>, or { err }, try; fallible int/float/read_file/write_file/delete_file
- for i, x in list / for k, v in map
- print and str() share one text formatter
- LSP: method and map completion, method signatures; grammar and snippets for VS Code and Kate
- tests: 74 (methods, errors, maps + 11 failure cases); docs at all three levels, en and pl
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
boot/ is a second Finch compiler written in Finch (lexer, parser, type checker and
an LLVM IR text generator, ~3k lines). Built by the C++ compiler it compiles itself;
stage 2 and stage 3 produce byte-identical IR. It covers the core language: functions,
structs, arrays, str, pointers, loops and modules (no C imports, sized numbers or defer),
copies values like the main compiler and leaves freeing memory to the operating system.
tests/boot.sh checks the fixpoint and runs the test programs it supports.
Also: shell(cmd) built-in.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
- struct with default values; constructors Point(1, 2) / Point(x: 1); field access, auto-deref through pointers
- []T arrays with bounds checks, literals, for-each, push/pop/insert/remove/clear/resize/find/contains/join/slice/reverse/sort
- str carries its length: .len, s[i], +, comparison, sub/find/split/trim/upper/lower/replace/repeat/bytes, str(x), int(s), float(s)
- Memory: values own their memory and are freed at the end of their block; assignment copies, temporaries move;
parameters are lent and only copied when the function changes them; defer; new()/free() for manual heap memory
- input(), read_file/write_file/file_exists, exit(), fn main([]str args)
- Finch modules: import name, module.fn(), module.Struct
- C structs from headers (fields, fixed arrays, nested); passed and returned by value with the System V x86-64 ABI;
addr(fn) gives C a callback
- link "file.c" compiles and links your own C code
- -g emits DWARF debug info (gdb/lldb)
- Small C runtime (runtime/finch_rt.c) embedded in the compiler, cached in ~/.cache/finch
- Tests: 58, all clean under valgrind (MEMCHECK=1 tests/run.sh)
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
