Wa (Chinese name "凹", which pronounced "Wa") is a general-purpose programming language designed for for WebAssembly. The goal is to provide a simple, reliable, easy-to-use, statically typed language for high-performance web applications. The code generator and runtime are fully independently developed (not dependent on external projects such as LLVM). Currently, Wa is in the engineering trial stage.

• Home: https://wa-lang.github.io/
• Manual: https://wa-lang.github.io/man/en/
• Github: https://github.com/wa-lang/wa
• Playground: https://wa-lang.org/playground

Note: The Wa compiler source files are distributed under the AGPL-v3 license. The Wa standard library is licensed under the MIT license. The programs you develop using the Wa language can be safely used commercially without open source. If you want to integrate the Wa compiler code into your own project, but do not want to be restricted by the infectiousness of AGPL-v3, you can contact us to customize the license agreement for you.

How to contribute

The project is still in the prototype stage. If you have co-construction or PR needs, please refer to How to contribute. We no longer accept PRs for modifications to third-party libraries.

Note: Our canonical Git repository is located at https://gitcode.com/wa-lang/wa. There is a mirror of the repository at https://github.com/wa-lang/wa.

Note: Submitting a PR to this repository is deemed to be your recognition and acceptance of the Wa Contributor Agreement(Aka WCA), but your PRs will not be reviewed or accepted until WCA is actually signed.

Wa Language Compiler Architecture

Wa is designed with a dual-frontend system (supporting both Chinese and English syntax) that interfaces with a unified Intermediate Representation (Wa-lang IR). The backend connects to proprietary Chinese/English assemblers, targeting various Instruction Set Architectures (ISA). This design achieves a fully self-developed toolchain without external dependencies such as GCC or LLVM.

graph LR
    wa_ext(Wa English.wa);
    wz_ext(Wa Chinese.wz);

    wa_ast(Wa English AST);
    wz_ast(Wa Chinese AST);
    
    wair(Wa-IR);

    wasm(WASM);
    nasm(Wa Native Assembler);
    c_cpp(C/C++);

    x64(X64);
    loong64(LoongArch);
    riscv(RISCV);
    arm64(ARM64);

    wa_ext --> wa_ast;
    wz_ext --> wz_ast;

    wa_ast --> wair;
    wz_ast --> wair;

    wair --> wasm
    wair --> nasm
    wair --> c_cpp

    nasm --> loong64
    nasm --> x64
    nasm --> riscv
    nasm --> arm64

• Note: The RISC-V platform has not yet undergone hardware testing due to the lack of a physical environment.
• Note: The Wa-lang IR is currently being refined; WebAssembly (Wasm) is presently utilized as the intermediate IR.

Playground

https://wa-lang.org/playground

Snake Game

• Play: https://wa-lang.org/wa/snake/
• Code: waroot/examples/snake/README-en.md

WASM4 Game

• Wasm4/Snake: https://wa-lang.org/wa/w4-snake/
  • Source Code (English): https://github.com/wa-lang/wa/tree/master/waroot/examples/w4-snake/
  • Source Code (Chinese): https://github.com/wa-lang/wa/tree/master/waroot/examples/w4-snake-wz/
• Wasm4/2048: https://wa-lang.org/wa/w4-2048/

• Wasm4/Snake Code
• Wasm4/2048 Code

NES emulator

• Play: https://wa-lang.org/nes/
• Code: https://github.com/wa-lang/nes

WebGPU Demo

• Play: https://wa-lang.org/webgpu/
• Code: https://github.com/wa-lang/webgpu

P5 for creative coding

• https://wa-lang.org/smalltalk/st0037.html

Arduino Nano 33

• https://wa-lang.org/smalltalk/st0052.html

Example: Print (Chinese)

Print string and call function：

注: 你好，世界！

引入 "书"

函数·主控:
	书·说("你好，凹语言中文版！")
完毕

Execute the program:

$ wa run hello.wz 
你好，凹语言中文版！

Example: Print (English)

Print rune and call function：

import "fmt"

global year: i32 = 2023

func main {
	println("hello, Wa!")
	println(add(40, 2), year)

	fmt.Println(1+1)
}

func add(a: i32, b: i32) => i32 {
	return a+b
}

Execute the program:

$ wa run hello.wa 
hello, Wa!
42 2023
2

Example: Print Prime

Print prime numbers up to 30:

func main {
	for n := 2; n <= 30; n = n + 1 {
		isPrime: int = 1
		for i := 2; i*i <= n; i = i + 1 {
			if x := n % i; x == 0 {
				isPrime = 0
			}
		}
		if isPrime != 0 {
			println(n)
		}
	}
}

Execute the program:

$ cd waroot && wa run examples/prime
2
3
5
7
11
13
17
19
23
29

More examples waroot/examples

Contributors

Contact us

Email: dev{AT}wa-lang.org