Introduction to Wave v0.0.8-pre-beta: Pointer Support Arrives

Hello! I'm LunaStev, the developer of Wave.

We are very happy to introduce Wave v0.0.8-pre-beta — a version that officially brings first-class pointer support to the language.

Wave was designed with low-level capabilities in mind, and in this version, we’re making a major leap in that direction.

✅ Added Features

🧠 Pointer System: First-Class Pointer Support in Wave

• Introduced ptr<T> type syntax for defining typed pointers
  → Example: var p: ptr<i32>;

• Implemented &x address-of operator
  → Compiles to LLVM IR as store i32* %x

• Implemented deref p dereference operator
  → Generates IR as load i32, i32* %p

• Supported pointer-based initialization
  → var p: ptr<i32> = &x; is now fully parsed and compiled

• Enabled dereferencing for both expression and assignment
  → Example: deref p = 42; is valid and stored directly via IR

• Address values can be printed as integers
  → %ld used for pointer-to-int cast in formatted output
  → println("address = {}", p); prints memory address

🔧 Bug Fixes

🐛 Fixed Pointer Initialization Parsing Issue

• Changed VariableNode.initial_value from Option<Literal> to Option<Expression>

• Allowed &x to be accepted as a valid initializer expression

🐛 Fixed LLVM IR Crash on AddressOf Expression

• Added support for Expression::AddressOf in IR generation

• Prevented crash by checking for variable reference inside address-of

🐛 Fixed printf format mismatch for pointers

• %s → %ld for pointer values

• Ensured correct casting of i32* to i64 before printing

✨ Other Changes

🧠 Improved Format String Handling in IR

• Added dynamic format string generation based on argument types

• Format strings now automatically adapt for int, float, and pointer types

Showcase

![Imag3e description](https://cdn.hashnode.com/res/hashnode/image/upload/v1754270366188/032659ca-dbc7-40dc-9d0c-2403ad2b6cd0.png align="left")

![Ima3ge description](https://cdn.hashnode.com/res/hashnode/image/upload/v1754270367057/0735b5ae-2de5-48fd-be40-46923c3c8c85.png align="left")

Thank you for using Wave! Stay tuned for future updates and enhancements.

Installation Guide

For Linux:

1. Download and Extract:

   • Download the wave-v0.0.8-pre-beta-x86_64-linux-gnu.tar.gz file from the official source.

   • Use the wget command:

     wget https://github.com/LunaStev/Wave/releases/download/v0.0.8-pre-beta/wave-v0.0.8-pre-beta-x86_64-linux-gnu.tar.gz
     

   • Extract the archive:

     sudo tar -xvzf wave-v0.0.8-pre-beta-x86_64-linux-gnu.tar.gz -C /usr/local/bin
     

2. Setting up LLVMs

   • Open a terminal and type:

     sudo apt-get update
     sudo apt-get install llvm-14 llvm-14-dev clang-14 libclang-14-dev lld-14 clang
     sudo ln -s /usr/lib/llvm-14/lib/libLLVM-14.so /usr/lib/libllvm-14.so
     export LLVM_SYS_140_PREFIX=/usr/lib/llvm-14
     source ~/.bashrc
     

3. Verify Installation:

   • Open a terminal and type:

     wavec --version
     

   • If the version number displays, the installation was successful.

Contributor

@LunaStev | 🇰🇷

Website

Website

GitHub

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