carv

Overview

carv is a systems programming language that compiles to C. It combines modern language ergonomics — ownership-based memory management, pipe operators, algebraic types — with the portability and optimization of C as a compilation target.

Features

• Ownership-based memory — No GC, no borrow checker, but deterministic memory management via move semantics and linear types
• Pipe operators — |> for clean data transformation pipelines
• Algebraic types — Enums with payloads, pattern matching, exhaustive checking
• Module system — Namespaced imports, visibility control, separate compilation
• C ABI compatible — Call C libraries directly, produce C headers for interop
• Async/await — Stackless coroutines that compile to C state machines
• Zero-cost FFI — No overhead for interfacing with C code

Example

fn greet(name: string) -> string {
    "hello, " ++ name
}

fn main() -> int {
    let names = ["world", "carv", "systems"]
    names |> map(greet) |> each(print)
    0
}

Building

git clone https://github.com/dev-dami/carv
cd carv
go build -o carv ./cmd/carv
./carv build examples/hello.carv

The compiler is written in Go and emits ANSI C99. The output can be compiled with gcc, clang, tcc, or any C99-compatible compiler.