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Prerequisites

You need Zig 0.16 or later (nightly). Download it from ziglang.org/download.
Zig 0.16 is a nightly release. For reproducible builds, use the exact compiler version pinned in the CI configuration.

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Build commands

# Debug build (fast compile, includes assertions)
zig build

# Run all tests (70+ tests)
zig build test

# Run with a query
zig build run -- 'FROM testdata/app.json WHERE level = "error"'

# Optimized release build (~5MB static binary)
zig build -Doptimize=ReleaseFast

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Installing the built binary

After a release build, copy the binary to your PATH: 
sudo cp zig-out/bin/zeal /usr/local/bin/

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Running benchmarks

Benchmarks require the optimized build. The bench.sh script generates a synthetic log file and times several query patterns: 
zig build -Doptimize=ReleaseFast
./bench/bench.sh 10000
The argument is the number of log entries to generate. Pass a larger number for a more stable measurement.

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Cross-compilation

Zig supports cross-compilation out of the box — no cross-compiler toolchain required. The CI pipeline builds release binaries for four targets:
  • Linux x86_64
  • Linux aarch64
  • macOS x86_64
  • macOS aarch64
To cross-compile locally, pass -Dtarget= to zig build: 
zig build -Doptimize=ReleaseFast -Dtarget=aarch64-linux

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