The V Programming Language

Getting Started With V

2023-04-17

getting-started-with-v

Introduction

V is a simple, fast, safe, compiled general purpose programming language for developing maintainable software. There are several compelling reasons for using V, which you can learn more about here: The V Programming Language

In this post, we focus on getting new users up to speed so that they can start working with V right away.

Installing (and Updating) V

Since V is in active development, there will be a lot of breaking changes often. Therefore, it is recommended that you install V from the source repository at github.com/vlang/v.

Installing V from Source

It is recommended to go through the steps listed here. Briefly, these are the steps you need to follow:

cd to/some/appropriate/location
git clone https://github.com/vlang/v # Use --depth 1 if you have bandwidth or space constraints
cd v
make # On Windows, run make.bat in a cmd shell or PowerShell instance

V compiles itself really fast and requires no dependencies and libraries for self compilation. It ships with TCC by default but it is recommended to install an established C compiler so that you can make optimised builds.

Weekly Release

V makes weekly releases (besides the normal semantic version update releases) if you do not prefer compiling V yourself. You can find the releases here: Releases.

Symlinking

The V executable generated (or obtained) is not automatically added to your PATH. V provides a convenient solution to this.

# On Linux, MacOS, and other similar systems
sudo ./v symlink

# On Windows, open an Administrator shell and run the following.
# NOTE: This is the ONLY command that needs to be run from an Administrator shell.
.\v.exe symlink

# Test your installation by running:
v version

If this did not work correctly, refer to the official instructions for more information.

Updating V

Similar to rustup, V supports the following command:

v up

This command updates the V compiler to the latest version available from the main Github repository.

Learning V

Syntactically, V is similar to Go. Therefore Go devs can feel at home when they write V code. Knowledge of Go is not necessary; the language is very simple and the fundamental concepts can be learned over a weekend.

The official documentation for the language is written in a single markdown document: V Documentation.

The documentation for all the modules included in the V standard library (vlib) is available here: vlib Documentation. You are encouraged to use the search bar to find the functions and structs you need for your project.

For a taste of V, here is a truncated example of TOML file parsing. The sample TOML file is available here: TOML Example

import toml
import toml.to

// Multiline string
const toml_text = '# This is a TOML document.

title = "TOML Example"

[owner]
name = "Tom Preston-Werner"
dob = 1979-05-27T07:32:00-08:00 # First class dates

[database]
server = "192.168.1.1"
ports = [ 8000, 8001, 8002 ]
connection_max = 5000
enabled = true

[servers]

  # Indentation (tabs and/or spaces) is allowed but not required
  [servers.alpha]
  ip = "10.0.0.1"
  dc = "eqdc10"

  [servers.beta]
  ip = "10.0.0.2"
  dc = "eqdc10"

[clients]
data = [ ["gamma", "delta"], [1, 2] ]

# Line breaks are OK when inside arrays
hosts = [
  "alpha",
  "omega"
]
'

fn main() {
    doc := toml.parse_text(toml_text)!
    title := doc.value('title').string()
    println('title: "${title}"')
    ip := doc.value('servers.alpha.ip').string()
    println('Server IP: "${ip}"')

    toml_json := to.json(doc)
    println(toml_json)
}

Setting up your Development Environment

Code Editor

As of 2023, Visual Studio Code is still a popular choice in the community. However, the IntelliJ V Plugin for JetBrains IDEs is also well-favoured. For help with other editors, please join our Discord Server.

Running a V Program

Your project should have at least one main function. Then you can compile and run your code in one of two ways:

  1. Directly run the program with v run file.v or v run directory. You can even do v run . to run the only main function in the directory. Note that a module main needs to be present at the top of your entry file when you want to execute a directory.
  2. Compile the program with v file.v (optionally as v -prod file.v) and then run the generated executable.

Miscellaneous

You need git to clone and update V. Make sure that it is installed on your machine.

Additionally, use v new and v init as necessary, and use v fmt -w /path/ to automatically format your source code. Consult v help init and v help fmt for more information.

Bonus: look at all the tools accessible using the v front-end here: cmd/tools.

Getting Help and Reaching Out

It is recommended that you make frequent use of v help, consult the language documentation and the modules documentation. If you want to get specific help, reach out to us directly, or just hang out with the V community members, join our Discord Server. Use the appropriate channels for your needs.

While developing in V, you may encounter bugs. Please report them in the #bugs channel, and file Github issues about them with v bug file.v.