System Dependencies#

Bark compiles programs to native binaries via C. A C compiler (cc or gcc) must be available on your system. Beyond that, Bark uses conditional compilation to only require libraries that your program actually uses.

Core Requirements#

Every Bark program needs:

• A C compiler (cc, gcc, or clang)
• pthreads (included on macOS and Linux)
• libm (math library, included on macOS and Linux)

These are available by default on macOS and most Linux distributions.

Module Dependencies#

The following modules require additional system libraries. Bark only links these when your program imports the corresponding module.

On macOS, all three libraries are available through the system or Xcode Command Line Tools. No additional installation is needed.

On Linux, install only the -dev packages for the modules you use. For example, if your program uses sql.open but not http or crypto, you only need libsqlite3-dev.

Example#

A simple program that does not use http, crypto, or sql requires no additional dependencies:

fn main() {
  "Hello, world!" > println()
}()

bark hello.bark    # Only needs cc, pthreads, libm
./build/hello

A program that uses SQLite:

# Install the dependency first (Linux only)
apt install libsqlite3-dev

bark my_app.bark   # Links -lsqlite3 automatically
./build/my_app

Verbose Mode#

Use -v to see which modules Bark detected and the exact compiler command:

bark -v my_app.bark

This prints the modules found and the full cc invocation, making it easy to diagnose missing libraries.