Company
Date Published
Author
Redis
Word count
1496
Language
English
Hacker News points
None

Summary

Redis supports modules, which are custom extensions that add new commands, data types, and functionalities to a Redis database. Writing a module can be done using C, but this requires setting up a new C project and dealing with cross-platform compilation issues. Zig, a new language developed by Andrew Kelley, is a more modern alternative that allows writing fully C ABI compatible binaries while providing additional safety features such as advanced error checking and generics. Zig makes it easy to write Redis modules by allowing the import of C header files directly or translating them to Zig using the `translate-c` command. The translation process involves changing type signatures to spare unnecessary optional unwrapping, and the resulting code is straightforward and easy to read. With Zig, building a Redis module can be done with minimal effort, even cross-compilation for 64-bit Linux is supported in a single command.