MasterQ32 / zig-network

A smallest-common-subset of socket functions for crossplatform networking, TCP & UDP

Zig Network Abstraction

Small network abstraction layer around TCP & UDP.

Features

• Implements the minimal API surface for basic networking
• Makes cross-platform abstractions
• Supports blocking and non-blocking I/O via select/poll
• UDP multicast support

Usage

Use with the package manager

build.zig.zon:

.{
    .name = "appname",
    .version = "0.0.0",
    .dependencies = .{
        .network = .{
            .url = "https://github.com/MasterQ32/zig-network/archive/<COMMIT_HASH_HERE>.tar.gz",
            .hash = "HASH_GOES_HERE",
        },
    },
}

(To aquire the hash, please remove the line containing .hash, the compiler will then tell you which line to put back)

build.zig:

exe.addModule("network", b.dependency("network", .{}).module("network"));

Usage example

const network = @import("network");

test "Connect to an echo server" {
    try network.init();
    defer network.deinit();

    const sock = try network.connectToHost(std.heap.page_allocator, "tcpbin.com", 4242, .tcp);
    defer sock.close();

    const msg = "Hi from socket!\n";
    try sock.writer().writeAll(msg);

    var buf: [128]u8 = undefined;
    std.debug.print("Echo: {}", .{buf[0..try sock.reader().readAll(buf[0..msg.len])]});
}

See async.zig for a more complete example on how to use asynchronous I/O to make a small TCP server.

Run examples

Build all examples:

$ zig build examples

Build a specific example:

$ zig build sync-examples

To test an example, eg. echo:

$ ./zig-out/bin/echo 3000

in another terminal

$ nc localhost 3000
hello
hello
how are you
how are you

Notes

On Windows receive and send function calls are asynchronous and cooperate with the standard library event loop when io_mode = .evented is set in the root file of your program.
Other calls (connect, listen, accept etc) are blocking.