Install FutureBlitz

What you’ll build

A working FutureBlitz setup: the fb command on your system, a program it has built and run, and an editor that understands .fb files. fb is the one command you need. It compiles, runs, tests, formats, and documents FutureBlitz code, and it comes with the compiler, the linker, and the standard library, so on Windows and Linux nothing else has to be installed first. On macOS, fb also uses Apple’s Command Line Tools, for the macOS SDK it links programs with.

Install fb and check it

The download page detects your operating system and shows the recommended way to install fb on it, with the other ways below: a package manager, an install script, and downloads to install by hand. Follow one, then open a new terminal and ask fb for its version:

fb --version

It prints one line: fb’s version, then the commit it was built from and the system it builds for, like this:

fb 1.0.0 (1a2b3c4, windows-x64)

If the terminal says the command isn’t found, open a new one: installing adds fb to your PATH, and a terminal that was already open doesn’t see the change.

On macOS, install Apple’s Command Line Tools too, if they aren’t already, before you build a program:

xcode-select --install

Build a program

Make a folder, and a file in it named check.fb. Run it from that folder with fb run check.fb, which compiles the file into a native executable and runs it:

Import std.core

Local sum = 0
For n = 1 To 100
    sum += n
End For
Print("1 + 2 + ... + 100 = {sum}")

1 + 2 + ... + 100 = 5050

If you see that line, the compiler, the linker, and the standard library all work.

Set up an editor

The FutureBlitz extension for Visual Studio Code is on the Visual Studio Marketplace and on Open VSX. Search for “FutureBlitz” in the Extensions view, or install it from a terminal:

code --install-extension futureblitz.futureblitz

It gives you:

• highlighting for .fb files;
• errors as you type, from FutureBlitz’s language server;
• formatting on save, the same as fb fmt;
• Run, Debug, and Run Tests, in the editor’s title bar.

The language server, fb-lsp, comes with fb, so any editor that supports the Language Server Protocol can use it.

What you learned

• fb is one command that builds, runs, tests, formats, and documents code.
• fb --version shows which fb you have and the system it builds for.
• fb run file.fb compiles a file into a native executable and runs it.
• The VS Code extension and fb-lsp bring the compiler’s errors into your editor.