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zsdl3

gamedev sdl3

ZSDL3 — Zig bindings for SDL3

Zig SDL3

Thin, zero-overhead bindings for SDL3, SDL3_image, and SDL3_ttf — without @cImport.

Need Zig 0.15.2? Use the zig-0.15.2 branch.

Install

# macOS
brew install sdl3 sdl3_ttf sdl3_image
# Linux (Debian/Ubuntu)
sudo apt install libsdl3-dev
# Linux (Arch)
sudo pacman -S sdl3
# Linux (Fedora)
sudo dnf install SDL3-devel SDL3_image SDL3_ttf
# Windows — download from https://github.com/libsdl-org/SDL/releases

Or build SDL3 from source.

Depend on it

zig fetch --save git+https://github.com/felixuxx/zsdl3.git

Then in build.zig:

const zsdl3 = b.dependency("zsdl3", .{});
exe.root_module.addImport("zsdl3", zsdl3.module("zsdl3"));
exe.root_module.linkSystemLibrary("SDL3", .{});

Build

git clone https://github.com/felixuxx/zsdl3.git
cd zsdl3
zig build          # builds main binary + all examples
zig build run      # run the app

Run examples

Step Example
zig build run-basic-2d window + yellow rect
zig build run-cube-3d rotating 3D cube
zig build run-gpu-test GPU device + shader formats
zig build run-image-test load PNG via SDL3_image
zig build run-ttf-example render TTF text
zig build run-text-editor text editor with file dialogs
zig build run-test-enhanced-renderer-visual renderer smoke test

Usage

const std = @import("std");
const zsdl3 = @import("zsdl3");

pub fn main() void {
    if (!zsdl3.init(zsdl3.SDL_INIT_VIDEO)) return;
    defer zsdl3.quit();

    const window = zsdl3.createWindow("Demo", 800, 600, zsdl3.SDL_WINDOW_RESIZABLE) orelse return;
    defer zsdl3.destroyWindow(window);

    const renderer = zsdl3.createRenderer(window, null) orelse return;
    defer zsdl3.destroyRenderer(renderer);

    while (true) {
        var event: zsdl3.SDL_Event = undefined;
        while (zsdl3.pollEvent(&event)) if (event.type == zsdl3.SDL_EVENT_QUIT) return;
        _ = zsdl3.setRenderDrawColor(renderer, 30, 60, 90, 255);
        _ = zsdl3.renderClear(renderer);
        zsdl3.renderPresent(renderer);
        zsdl3.delay(16);
    }
}

All functions use short Zig-friendly names (init, createWindow, pollEvent). Full API at SDL3 Wiki.

Structure

src/     — 50+ subsystem files (core, video, render, gpu, audio, image, ttf, …)
examples/ — 7 runnable examples

License: zlib (same as SDL3) — see LICENSE.

Install 
zig f -S zub.sh/zsdl3
Repository
License
NOASSERTION
Category
Author
felixuxx
felixuxx
Dependencies

No explicit dependencies.

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