Zig Async Programming

Zig provides powerful async programming support, including async/await syntax and coroutine mechanisms. This chapter introduces the basic concepts and usage of async programming in Zig.

Async Programming Basics

async and await Keywords

const std = @import("std");

// Async function
async fn asyncTask(id: u32, duration: u64) void {
    std.debug.print("Task {} started\n", .{id});
    
    // Simulate async operation
    std.time.sleep(duration * 1000000); // Convert to nanoseconds
    
    std.debug.print("Task {} completed\n", .{id});
}

// Async function with return value
async fn asyncCalculation(a: i32, b: i32) i32 {
    std.debug.print("Starting calculation {} + {}\n", .{ a, b });
    
    // Simulate calculation delay
    std.time.sleep(100000000); // 100ms
    
    const result = a + b;
    std.debug.print("Calculation complete: {} + {} = {}\n", .{ a, b, result });
    
    return result;
}

pub fn main() void {
    std.debug.print("Async programming example\n");
    
    // Start async tasks
    var frame1 = async asyncTask(1, 200);
    var frame2 = async asyncTask(2, 100);
    var frame3 = async asyncCalculation(10, 20);
    
    std.debug.print("All tasks started\n");
    
    // Wait for tasks to complete
    await frame1;
    await frame2;
    const result = await frame3;
    
    std.debug.print("Calculation result: {}\n", .{result});
    std.debug.print("All tasks completed\n");
}

Summary

This chapter introduced the basics of Zig async programming:

• ✅ async/await syntax and coroutine concepts
• ✅ Async I/O operations
• ✅ Async network programming basics
• ✅ Task scheduling and management
• ✅ Async error handling
• ✅ Best practices and resource management

Zig's async programming model provides powerful and flexible concurrency handling capabilities, suitable for building high-performance async applications. Note that Zig's async features are still evolving, and some APIs may change in future versions.

In the next chapter, we'll learn about Zig's interaction with C.