cstring is ONE pointer to a null-terminated u8 buffer, C's char*: thin
(8 bytes, no length; cstring_len walks to the terminator), crossing
#foreign boundaries verbatim in both directions, with ?cstring as the
nullable case lowering to the same bare pointer (null = absent).
Conversion discipline mirrors Odin: a string LITERAL coerces implicitly
(its bytes are terminated constants); any other string is rejected with
a diagnostic naming to_cstring (it may be an unterminated view); and
cstring never coerces to string implicitly — from_cstring(c) is the
explicit zero-copy view, pricing the strlen.
Plumbing: TypeId/TypeInfo builtin slot 18 (first_user 19), name
classifiers, size/align/name tables, LLVM ptr lowering, the ?T pointer
niche, the xx pointer ladder, the literal-gated coercion plan
(isConstString + data_ptr), and the reserved-spelling set. std gains
cstring_len/from_cstring/to_cstring (fmt.sx, re-exported); the old
cstring(size) allocator helper is renamed alloc_string everywhere;
getenv migrates to (name: cstring) -> ?cstring as the canonical user
and env() drops its manual strlen/memcpy.
Pinned: examples/1222 (FFI both directions, literal coercion,
?cstring null paths, round trip) and examples/1173 (both coercion
diagnostics); FAIL pre-feature. The alloc_string rename + getenv
signature shift the .ir snapshots — regenerated. zig build test
426/426; run_examples 604/604.
Spec: reserved spelling + cstring section + C-interop rows.
Surface rename of the signed integer family: s1..s64 become i1..i64
(u1..u64, usize, isize unchanged). 'string' keeps the s-prefix arm in
name classification; width parsing moves to the i-prefix arm next to
isize.
Internal TypeId tags follow the surface (.s8/.s16/.s32/.s64 ->
.i8/.i16/.i32/.i64), as do mono-key mangle fragments (ptr_i64,
tu_i64_bool) and all display/diagnostic formatting (i{d}).
Migrated in the same sweep: stdlib + examples + issue repros + FFI C
companions (shared symbol names like ffi_id_i64), expected
stdout/stderr/ir snapshots, specs.md, readme.md, CLAUDE.md/AGENTS.md,
implementation_plan.md, docs/, issue writeups. Vendored stb_image and
historical flow state left untouched.
zig build test: 426/426; examples suite: 595/595.
allocators/fs/process/socket/log/trace/test move under modules/std/
(allocators.sx becomes std/mem.sx; the Allocator protocol moves into
the std.sx prelude, impls stay in mem.sx). New std/xml.sx holds
xml_escape as xml.escape. std.sx gains the carried namespace tail —
flat-importing std.sx now also provides mem./xml./log. — with the
remaining modules (fs/process/socket/json/cli/hash/test) deferred from
the tail until the global last-wins maps are fully own-wins (pulling
them into every closure collides bare names corpus-wide; they stay
direct imports: modules/std/fs.sx etc.). log.sx's internal emit
renamed log_emit (it clobbered consumer fns named emit program-wide).
bundle.sx uses xml.escape via the carried alias. Consumer import paths
swept mechanically; .ir snapshots recaptured for the larger std
closure. m3te + game build unchanged.
