What does Raku++ depend on?
Nothing third-party. The rakupp executable links only the libraries that the operating system already has: the C library, the C++ runtime (on Linux and Windows this is linked into the binary), threads, the dynamic loader, and, on macOS, libiconv. It does not link OpenSSL, libcurl, libffi, zlib, ICU, GMP, PCRE, readline, SQLite, libuv or LLVM, and it does not vendor any of them either.
That does not mean Raku++ cannot do HTTPS or talk to a database. It can, but the engine does not do it alone: a module drives the system's own library through NativeCall. The rest of this page lists what is linked, what is written in-house instead, and what the engine loads only when a program asks for it.
Building it #
You need two things:
- CMake 3.16 or newer
- a C++17 compiler: Clang, GCC, MSVC or MinGW-w64
cmake -S . -B build && cmake --build buildThere is no bootstrap, so you do not need a Raku to build Raku++. Nothing else runs during the build either: no Python, no Perl, no code generator. The Unicode tables are generated C++ that is checked into src/, and the tools baked into the binary (rakupp install, rakupp doc, rakupp upgrade) are embedded by a CMake script. git is optional. When it is present, the build stamps its describe string into $*RAKU.compiler.build.
COMPILERS.md explains which compiler to prefer on each platform and why.
What the binary links #
| Platform | Linked at load time | Inside the binary |
|---|---|---|
| macOS | libSystem (libc, libm, pthreads, dlopen), libc++, libiconv, all shipped with macOS | — |
| Linux (release) | glibc 2.28 or newer: libc, libm, libpthread, libdl, the loader | libstdc++, libgcc |
| Windows, MSVC | Windows system DLLs, including ws2_32 (Winsock) and bcrypt (random bytes) | the C runtime (/MT), so you do not need the VC++ Redistributable |
| Windows, MinGW | the same system DLLs | libstdc++, libgcc, winpthread (-static) |
| BSDs | the base system's libc and libc++ | — |
Here it is on a Mac, read from a fresh build (version numbers trimmed):
$ otool -L build/rakupp
build/rakupp:
/usr/lib/libiconv.2.dylib
/usr/lib/libc++.1.dylib
/usr/lib/libSystem.B.dylibEach release checks the Linux row. tools/floor-gate.raku reads the packaged binaries back and fails the release if they need a glibc newer than 2.28 or a shared libstdc++. (Issue #82 is why: v3.26.0 shipped needing glibc 2.38 even though the docs said "no dependencies".) On Windows, the release workflow lists the MinGW binary's DLL imports and fails if a MinGW runtime DLL appears in them.
What each system library is for #
| Library | Used for |
|---|---|
| libc | files, processes, sockets, DNS (getaddrinfo), time, locale, inotify on Linux |
| pthreads | start, Promise, hyper/race, Supply schedulers, Lock |
dlopen | NativeCall, native extensions, --jit kernels |
| libm | Num maths |
| iconv | the gb2312, gb18030 and windows-932 encodings, and nothing else. iconv is not available on OpenBSD or Windows, so those three encodings are missing there and everything else works |
Winsock, bcrypt | sockets and the OS random-number generator on Windows |
Written in-house instead of linked #
Usually an interpreter gets these from a library. In Raku++ they are part of the engine:
| Feature | Instead of |
|---|---|
Int of any size, Rat, FatRat | GMP / libtommath |
| regexes and grammars, including longest-token matching | PCRE / a regex library |
| the Unicode database: properties, names, normalisation, collation, case mapping, grapheme breaks | ICU |
zlib, gzip and raw deflate (Data::Native) | zlib |
| MD5, SHA-1, SHA-2 and HMAC | OpenSSL's libcrypto |
JSON, which also powers Rakudo::Internals::JSON, and CSV | a JSON library |
| random bytes | the OS CSPRNG directly: getentropy, getrandom, BCryptGenRandom |
TCP and UDP sockets, IO::Socket::Async | libuv |
| line editing in the REPL | readline / libedit |
Loaded only when a program asks #
You will not find these in otool -L or ldd. They are either loaded at run time or run as separate programs, and only on the code path that needs them. If one is missing, that one feature fails with an error. Everything else keeps working.
| Need | What the engine uses | When it is missing |
|---|---|---|
NativeCall (is native) | the system libffi, loaded with dlopen. Set RAKUPP_FFI to a path to choose one, or to 0 to turn it off | a built-in fallback handles a narrower set of signatures and throws for the rest. FFI.md has the details |
| TLS / HTTPS | not the engine. The IO::Socket::Async::SSL module calls the system OpenSSL (libssl) through NativeCall | the module cannot load. Plain sockets still work |
| HTTP | not the engine. Use a module such as HTTP::Tiny or Cro. See is HTTP built into the engine? | — |
| databases | not the engine. The DBIish drivers call libsqlite3, libpq or libmysqlclient through NativeCall. Their own test suites pass unmodified | connect fails with the driver's usual error |
| any other C library | whatever you name in is native('foo'). See naming a native library so it loads on every OS | the usual NativeCall error |
| file watching on macOS | the CoreServices framework (FSEvents), loaded with dlopen. It ships with macOS | — |
rakupp install / upgrade | curl and tar, run as separate programs | the install fails with the command's own error |
--exe, --bundle, --jit | a C++ compiler on the machine running the command. See turning a program into a binary | they fail. Running a script never needs a compiler |
In short:
| Is it built in? | |
|---|---|
| sockets, DNS, JSON, compression, hashing, Unicode, big numbers | yes, no use needed |
| HTTP | no. Use a module |
| TLS | no. Use a module and the system OpenSSL |
| database connectors | no. Use DBIish and the database's own client library |
Why it is built this way #
Raku++ ships as one file. You can copy bin/rakupp on its own to another machine with the same OS and architecture, or COPY it into a container, and it runs. The release CI tests a lone copy with nothing beside it. It does not depend on any particular version of OpenSSL or libffi.
There is also less to keep up to date. A TLS stack, its certificate store and its protocol versions are security-critical code that changes often. Raku++ leaves that work to the system's OpenSSL and curl, which the OS updates. If Raku++ carried its own copy, that copy would age with each Raku++ release.
Checking it yourself #
otool -L "$(command -v rakupp)" # macOSreadelf -d "$(command -v rakupp)" | grep NEEDED # Linuxobjdump -p rakupp.exe | grep -i 'DLL Name' # Windows (MinGW binutils)To check that nothing from the "Loaded only when a program asks" table is linked, search the output for ssl, crypto, ffi, z, icu, curl or sqlite. None of them appear.