Ngawi Language

Ngawi is an experimental programming language project. It targets short syntax with native output.

Project Status

Stage: experimental.

You can build and run real programs, but language design, diagnostics, and code generation can still change between commits. Do not treat current output as production stable.

Current language surface:

• control flow: if/elif/else, while, for, match (int+bool+string MVP), break, continue
• arrays (MVP): scalar arrays (int[], float[], bool[], string[]) plus nested scalar forms (int[][], float[][], bool[][], string[][]), with literals, indexing, indexed assignment, len(array), push, and pop
• operators: arithmetic, comparison, logical, compound assignment, postfix ++/--
• strings: equality by value, concatenation with +, len, contains, starts_with, ends_with, to_lower, to_upper, trim
• modules: top-level import "file.ngawi"; with cycle detection

Compiler pipeline in this repository:

• Source .ngawi
• Lexer
• Parser to AST
• Semantic checks
• C11 codegen
• GCC build to native binary

Build

make debug

Run

./ngawic build examples/hello.ngawi -o hello
./hello

Emit C11

./ngawic build examples/hello.ngawi -o hello -S

Command writes hello.c. Generated C uses runtime helpers from src/runtime/ngawi_runtime.h and src/runtime/ngawi_runtime.c.

Tests

make test

Test set:

• lexer unit tests
• parser unit tests
• sema unit tests
• end to end compile and run tests
• golden codegen snapshots

Update golden snapshots after codegen changes:

make update_golden

Aliases

Ngawi supports base names and aliases.

Type aliases:

• int or amba
• float or rusdi
• bool or fuad
• string or imut
• void

Declaration aliases:

• let or muwani
• const or crot

Cast builtin aliases:

• to_int(x) or to_amba(x)
• to_float(x) or to_rusdi(x)

Documentation

• Docs index: docs/README.md
• Getting started: docs/getting-started.md
• Syntax guide: docs/syntax-guide.md
• Language specification: docs/language-spec.md
• Compiler architecture: docs/compiler-architecture.md
• Testing guide: docs/testing.md
• Contributing guide: docs/contributing.md
• Roadmap: docs/roadmap.md

Example

fn fact(n: amba) -> amba {
  if (n <= 1) {
    return 1;
  }
  return n * fact(n - 1);
}

fn main() -> amba {
  muwani value: amba = fact(5);
  crot label: imut = "fact";
  muwani ok: fuad = true;
  muwani scale: rusdi = 1.0;
  print(label, 5, "=", value, ok, scale);
  return 0;
}