The ADAN Programming Language

A modern, memory safe programming language designed to be written like JavaScript and used like C for low-level programming.

ADAN has been continuously maintained from between February 4th, 2026 to Now.

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Compiling the Compiler

Before compiling the compiler, you need to have XMake installed.

Note

Manual compilation is only required if you prefer not to use the pre-compiled binaries available in Releases.

$ xmake install       # Install remaining dependencies (Clang, LLVM, etc.)
$ xmake               # Build the ADAN compiler
$ xmake run           # Compile the default sample with the built compiler
$ ./samples/testing

If libcrypto or libsodium are installed outside the default search paths, set OPENSSL_ROOT_DIR or OPENSSL_LIB_DIR, and set LIBSODIUM_ROOT_DIR or LIBSODIUM_LIB_DIR, before running xmake or adan.

XMake Commands

$ xmake               # Build the ADAN compiler.
$ xmake run           # Run the compiler with the default sample arguments.
$ ./samples/testing   # Run the generated testing sample executable.
$ xmake format        # Format all source code using clang-format.
$ xmake install       # Install all required system dependencies.
$ xmake c             # Remove all build artifacts.
$ xmake f -a x64      # Configure for specific architecture (x64, arm64, etc.)

xmake run invokes the adan target with these default arguments:

$ ./build/linux/x86_64/release/adan -f samples/testing.adn -o samples/testing

This generates samples/testing on Linux and macOS or samples/testing.exe on Windows.

Compiler Arguments

ADAN's compiler provides flags to modify default compilation behaviors:

• -f <file> / --file <file>: Source file to compile (.adn or .adan). This argument is required.
• -o <path> / --output <path>: Specifies the output executable path. If <path> is a directory, the binary is placed inside it named after the source file. Defaults to the input source file name in the current directory if not provided.
• -r / --rawir: Emits the LLVM IR (.ll file) instead of compiling into an executable binary.
• -l <name> / --link-lib <name>: Adds a native library to the final linker invocation.
• -L <path> / --link-search <path>: Adds a native library search path to the final linker invocation.
• --link-arg <arg>: Passes a raw argument directly to the system linker.
• -h / --help: Show the help message and exit.

$ ./adan -f main.adn -r    # Output 'main.ll' LLVM IR.
$ ./adan --file main.adn   # Outputs a 'main' executable.

Native Linking

ADAN now supports source-level native-linking metadata for FFI declarations and top-level linker directives:

link "m";
link_search "/usr/lib";

extern function puts(text: string): i32 link "puts" library "c" abi "c";

You can also export a definition from ADAN for the generated object code:

export function add(a: i32, b: i32): i32 {
  return a + b;
}