Commit 71e809852c

@@ -0,0 +1,85 @@
+# Zig GNU C Library ("glibc") Support
+
+*Date*: November, 2023
+
+Zig supports building binaries that will dynamically link against the
+[GNU C Library ("glibc")](https://www.gnu.org/software/libc/) when run.
+This support extends across a range of glibc versions.
+
+By default, Zig binaries will not depend on any external C library, but
+they can be linked against one with the `-lc` option.  The compilation
+target defines which C library: `musl` for the
+[musl C library](https://musl.libc.org/) or `gnu` for the GNU C library.
+
+A specific GNU C library version can be chosen with an appropriate
+`-target`.  For example, `-target native-native-gnu.2.19` will use the
+default CPU and OS targets, but will link in a run-time dependency on
+glibc v2.19 (or later).  Use `zig env` to show the default target and
+version.
+
+Glibc symbols are defined in the `std.c.` namespace in Zig, though the
+`std.os.` namespace is generally what should be used to access C-library
+APIs in Zig code (it is defined depending on the linked C library).
+
+See `src/glibc.zig` for how Zig will build the glibc components.  The
+generated shared object files are sufficient only for compile-time
+linking. They are stub libraries that only indicate that which symbols
+will be present at run-time, along with their type and size.  The symbols
+do not reference an actual implementation.
+
+## Targets
+
+The GNU C Library supports a very wide set of platforms and architectures.
+The current Zig support for glibc only supports Linux.
+
+Zig supports glibc versions back to v2.17 (2012) as the Zig standard
+library depends on symbols that were introduced in 2.17.
+
+## Glibc stubs
+
+The file `lib/libc/glibc/abilist` is a Zig-specific binary blob that
+defines the supported glibc versions and the set of symbols each version
+must define.  See https://github.com/ziglang/glibc-abi-tool for the
+tooling to generate this blob.  The code in `glibc.zig` parses the abilist
+to build version-specific stub libraries on demand.
+
+The generated stub library is used for compile-time linking, with the
+expectation that at run-time the real glibc library will provide the
+actual symbol implementations.
+
+### Public Headers
+
+The glibc headers are in `lib/libc/include/generic-glibc/`.  These are
+customized and have a couple Zig-specific `#ifdef`s to make the single set
+of headers represent any of the supported glibc versions.  There are
+currently a handful of patches to these headers to represent new features
+(e.g. `reallocarray`) or changes in implementation (e.g., the `stat()`
+family of functions).
+
+The related Zig https://github.com/ziglang/universal-headers is a project
+designed to more robustly build multi-version header files suitable for
+compliation across a variety of target C library versions.
+
+## Glibc static C-Runtime object files and libraries
+
+Linking against glibc also implies linking against several, generally
+"invisible" glibc C Runtime libraries: `crti.o`, `crtn.o`, `Scrt1.o` and
+`libc_nonshared.a`.  These objects are linked into generated Zig binaries
+and are not run-time linking dependencies.  Generally they provide
+bootstrapping, initialization, and mapping of un-versioned public APIs to
+glibc-private versioned APIs.
+
+Like the public headers, these files contain a couple customiziations for
+Zig to be able to build for any supported glibc version.  E.g., for glibc
+versions before v2.32, `libc_nonshared.a` contained stubs that directed
+the `fstat()` call to a versioned `__fxstat()` call.
+
+These files used for these objects are in `lib/libc/glibc`.  See the
+`tools/update_glibc.zig` tool for updating content in here from the
+upstream glibc.
+
+# More Information
+
+See
+https://github.com/ziglang/zig/commit/2314051acaad37dd5630dd7eca08571d620d6496
+for an example commit that updates glibc (to v2.38).