Warning
Varn is in active development and not production-ready. Many features are unfinished.
Varn is a modern, low-level, statically typed programming language for system programming. It compiles to LLVM IR, enabling seamless interop with C/C++. Varn is inspired by C and Zig, but offers a more ergonomic, modular, and expressive syntax—without sacrificing control or performance.
Varn is not "C with new syntax". It is a new take on low-level programming: no garbage collection, no hidden abstractions, and no runtime overhead. You get full control over the hardware, with modern language features and zero-cost abstractions.
There is no std for now, we only use C functions
Hello, world:
extern fun printf(fmt: str, ...) -> i32;
fun main() -> i32 {
printf("Hello, world!\n");
ret 0;
}
String concatenation (no GC, manual memory):
extern fun strlen(src: str) -> usize;
extern fun malloc(size: usize) -> str;
extern fun strcpy(dest: str, src: str) -> str;
extern fun strcat(dest: str, src: str) -> str;
fun concat(a: str, b: str) -> str {
let lenA: usize = strlen(a);
let lenB: usize = strlen(b);
let totalLen: usize = lenA + lenB + 1;
let result: str = malloc(totalLen);
strcpy(result, a);
strcat(result, b);
ret result;
}
- LLVM backend: Easy C/C++ interop, native codegen, and toolchain support.
- No garbage collection: You manage memory—no hidden costs, no runtime.
- Zero-cost abstractions: Modern syntax, pattern matching, enums, and more—without runtime penalty.
- Modular by default: No
#include, no header hell. Modules are first-class. - Powerful standard library: Lightweight but rich, written from scratch for Varn. (WIP)
- Inspired by C and Zig: Familiar, but more ergonomic and expressive.
- No forced abstractions: You decide how close to the hardware you want to be.
git clone https://github.com/funcieqDEV/Varn
cd Varn
make
⚠️ Varn is under heavy development. The build may be unstable.
Varn is licensed under the Apache License 2.0. See LICENSE.