hakorune/docs/guides/how-to-build-native

Nyash Native Build Guide

Quick Start

🚀 Build CLI Only (Default)

# Minimal CLI build - fastest and cleanest
cargo build --bin nyash

# Run a simple program
cargo run --bin nyash -- local_tests/simple_hello.nyash

🎨 Build with GUI Features (Optional)

# Build with GUI support
cargo build --features gui

# Build GUI examples
cargo build --features gui-examples --example gui_simple_notepad

Features Overview

Nyash uses Cargo features to separate functionality:

• Default: cli - Core CLI interpreter only
• gui: Adds EguiBox for desktop GUI applications
• gui-examples: Includes GUI example applications

Available Build Targets

Core Binary

• cargo build --bin nyash - Main CLI interpreter

GUI Examples (with --features gui-examples)

• gui_simple_notepad - Text editor example
• gui_nyash_explorer - File manager example
• gui_debug_notepad - Debug-enabled text editor

Platform Support

Linux/WSL

# Standard build
cargo build --release --bin nyash

# Output: target/release/nyash

Windows Cross-Compilation

# Install cross-compilation tools
cargo install cargo-xwin

# Build Windows executable
cargo xwin build --target x86_64-pc-windows-msvc --release --bin nyash

# Output: target/x86_64-pc-windows-msvc/release/nyash.exe (~916KB)

CLI Options

• --dump-mir - Output MIR (Middle Intermediate Representation)
• --verify - Verify program structure
• --debug-fuel N - Limit parser iterations for debugging

Example:

cargo run --bin nyash -- --debug-fuel 1000 program.nyash

Testing

Local Test Files

Simple working examples are provided in local_tests/:

• simple_hello.nyash - Basic "Hello World" with variables
• basic_math.nyash - Arithmetic and boolean operations
• static_main.nyash - Static box Main pattern

# Run all test files
for file in local_tests/*.nyash; do
    echo "Testing $file"
    cargo run --bin nyash -- "$file"
done

Build Verification

# Verify CLI builds cleanly
cargo build --bin nyash

# Verify GUI features work when enabled
cargo build --features gui

# Verify examples compile
cargo build --features gui-examples --examples

Architecture Benefits

The feature-based architecture provides:

1. Fast Development: Default CLI build is minimal and fast
2. Optional GUI: Heavy GUI dependencies only when needed
3. Clean Separation: Core language separate from UI examples
4. Deployment Flexibility: Choose minimal or full-featured builds

Troubleshooting

Build Issues

• GUI dependency errors: Make sure to use --features gui when building GUI components
• Parser errors: Use --debug-fuel to limit parser iterations and diagnose infinite loops
• Missing dependencies: Run cargo update to refresh dependencies

Common Commands

# Clean build
cargo clean && cargo build --bin nyash

# Check for warnings
cargo check --bin nyash

# Run with verbose output
RUST_LOG=debug cargo run --bin nyash -- program.nyash

This guide ensures you can quickly build and run Nyash for development and testing of the upcoming MIR/VM/JIT features.