Fluent: Algorithmic Chaining Library for Slice Manipulation

[Sze]

The short answer is no (to magic).
The longer answer is, it works well, but you need to do some things yourself.

@gonzo

could I do this by adding a small configuration file per project, without a specific build.zig

The build.zig is the configuration file, together with the build.zig.zon.

@gonzo

have Fluent magically be downloaded (and maybe kept up to date)

No magic allowed, only things working in reasonable and understandable ways.
It gets downloaded automatically, but you are responsible for updating.
(Somebody could build tooling to make updating easier)

@gonzo

without me having to copy Fluent’s single file everywhere?

That isn’t necessary, but you need to use the build.zig and build.zig.zon.

For more explanation and an example repo take a look at:

Best way to release packages for libraries?

Technically it already can be used like it is, by adding fluent as a dependency to your application project (via zig fetch --save=fluent archive.tar.gz details below) and then using something like this: const mod_fluent = b.addModule("fluent", .{ .root_source_file = b.dependency("fluent", .{}).path("fluent.zig"), }); exe.root_module.addImport("fluent", mod_fluent); However I think the nicer way (for more complex libraries) may be to provide a build.zig that declares a module, steps below. …

---

I really think you shouldn’t avoid the build.zig and build.zig.zon and just get used to them and how they work, better then reinventing half-baked solutions via config files, that break down as soon as you want something a little bit more complex. Or when your config file tool, no longer is actively maintained.