resinator

Active contributors: squeek502, andrewrk

Purpose

lib/compiler/resinator/ is a complete Zig-language implementation of a Windows resource compiler — the .rc → .res pipeline historically owned by Microsoft's rc.exe. It backs zig rc and lets the Zig toolchain build Windows applications with embedded resources without depending on an external rc.exe.

Directory layout

lib/compiler/resinator/ contains the resource lexer, preprocessor (compatible with the rc.exe flavor of the C preprocessor), parser, AST, evaluator, code generator (producing .res), and link-side support. The directory is large; it is the entire project vendored into zig.

What zig rc does

zig rc <args> accepts the same flags as rc.exe and produces a .res (Windows binary resource) file from .rc input. It handles:

• The Microsoft preprocessor's quirks (token pasting, #pragma handling).
• The rc.exe parser (RC's grammar is its own, not C-compatible).
• Generation of all standard resource types: MENU, DIALOG, STRINGTABLE, VERSIONINFO, ACCELERATORS, ICON, BITMAP, CURSOR, custom data, etc.
• Code-page conversion of strings.
• COFF object emission so the result can be linked directly by zig / lld.

Integration points

• zig rc dispatches in src/main.zig to resinator.
• zig build-exe -fuse-rc=... and similar flags (in src/main.zig) use it transparently when a Windows target is selected.
• std.Build.Step for resource compilation is built on top of zig rc.

Tests

Tests for resinator live alongside the project (under lib/compiler/resinator/) and are wired into zig build test via test/tests.zig.

Key source files

File / dir	Purpose
lib/compiler/resinator/	The full project.
src/main.zig (zig rc dispatch)	Entry from the CLI.
lib/std/coff.zig	COFF reader/writer used to emit .res-derived sections.

See Bundled libraries for the rest of the Windows toolchain story (mingw-w64 headers, libc, etc.).