How to port c/c++ builds to zig

talvdav · September 12, 2025, 11:20am

Hi,

i want to build tcl/tk and mupdf with zig but i don’t have much experience building c/c++ projects.

Do you have some tips where to start?
Do you know about blogs/videos that deal with building c/c++ projects with zig?
Are there any tools that can help with that task?

Thank you.

floooh · September 12, 2025, 11:26am

Here’s an example build.zig for a non-trivial C/C++ cmdline tool:

github.com/floooh/sokol-tools

build.zig

master

const std = @import("std");
const Build = std.Build;

const common_flags = [_][]const u8{
    "-fstrict-aliasing",
};
const common_c_flags = common_flags;
const common_cpp_flags = common_flags;

const spvcross_public_cpp_flags = [_][]const u8{};

const tint_public_cpp_flags = [_][]const u8{
    "-DTINT_BUILD_SPV_READER",
    "-DTINT_BUILD_WGSL_WRITER",
};

pub fn build(b: *Build) void {
    _ = buildExe(b, b.standardTargetOptions(.{}), b.standardOptimizeOption(.{}), "");
}

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Just start reading at the top, it starts with an executable which is linked from a number of static link libraries which are defined further down the build file.

PS: also it might be worth checking allyourcodebase repositories · GitHub first to see if somebody else already did the work of wrapping a specific library into a zig package:

D-Berg · September 14, 2025, 4:33pm

As mentioned above use the various All your codebase repos as reference, then go through all the cmakelists.txt in your project and try to find the equivalent functionality in zigs buildsystem. Then try to build and fix the build errors one by one. Using fd to search for all *.c and *.cpp files also helps to then copy paste into build.zig.