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This repository contains the Nim compiler, Nim's stdlib, tools, and documentation.For more information about Nim, including downloads and documentation forthe latest release, check outNim's website orbleeding edge docs.

• Theforum - the best place to ask questions and to discuss Nim.
• #nim IRC Channel (Libera Chat) - a place to discuss Nim in real-time.Also where most development decisions get made.
• Discord - an additional place to discuss Nim in real-time. Mostchannels there are bridged to IRC.
• Gitter - an additional place to discuss Nim in real-time. Thereis a bridge between Gitter and the IRC channel.
• Matrix - the main room to discuss Nim in real-time.Matrix space contains a list of rooms, most of them are bridged to IRC.
• Telegram - an additional place to discuss Nim in real-time. Thereis the official Telegram channel. Not bridged to IRC.
• Stack Overflow - a popular Q/A site for programming relatedtopics that includes posts about Nim.
• GitHub Wiki - Misc user-contributed content.

The compiler currently officially supports the following platform andarchitecture combinations:

More platforms are supported, however, they are not tested regularly and theymay not be as stable as the above-listed platforms.

Compiling the Nim compiler is quite straightforward if you follow these steps:

First, the C source of an older version of the Nim compiler is needed tobootstrap the latest version because the Nim compiler itself is written in theNim programming language. Those C sources are available within thenim-lang/csources_v2 repository.

Next, to build from source you will need:

• A C compiler such asgcc 6.x/later or an alternative such asclang,Visual C++ orIntel C++. It is recommended to usegcc 6.x orlater.
• Eithergit orwget to download the needed source repositories.
• Thebuild-essential package when usinggcc on Ubuntu (and likelyother distros as well).
• On Windows MinGW 4.3.0 (GCC 8.10) is the minimum recommended compiler.
• Nim hosts a known working MinGW distribution:
  • MinGW32.7z
  • MinGW64.7z

Windows Note: Cygwin and similar POSIX runtime environments are not supported.

Then, if you are on a *nix system or Windows, the following steps should compileNim from source usinggcc,git, and thekoch build tool.

Note: The following commands are for the development version of the compiler.For most users, installing the latest stable version is enough. Check outthe installation instructions on the website to do so:https://nim-lang.org/install.html.

For package maintainers: seepackaging guidelines.

First, get Nim from GitHub:

git clone https://github.com/nim-lang/Nim.gitcd Nim

Next, run the appropriate build shell script for your platform:

• build_all.sh (Linux, Mac)
• build_all.bat (Windows)

Finally, once you have finished the build steps (on Windows, Mac, or Linux) youshould add thebin directory to your PATH.

See alsobootstrapping the compiler.

See alsoreproducible builds.

koch is the build tool used to build various parts of Nim and to generatedocumentation and the website, among other things. Thekoch tool can alsobe used to run the Nim test suite.

Assuming that you added Nim'sbin directory to your PATH, you may executethe tests using./koch tests. The tests take a while to run, but youcan run a subset of tests by specifying a category (for example./koch tests cat async).

For more information on thekoch build tool please see the documentationwithin thedoc/koch.md file.

nimble is Nim's package manager. To learn more about it, see thenim-lang/nimble repository.

This project exists thanks to all the people who contribute.

Seedetailed contributing guidelines.We welcome all contributions to Nim regardless of how small or largethey are. Everything from spelling fixes to new modules to be included in thestandard library are welcomed and appreciated. Before you start contributing,you should familiarize yourself with the following repository structure:

• bin/,build/ - these directories are empty, but are used when Nim is built.
• compiler/ - the compiler source code. Also includes plugins withincompiler/plugins.
• nimsuggest - the nimsuggest tool that previously lived in thenim-lang/nimsuggest repository.
• config/ - the configuration for the compiler and documentation generator.
• doc/ - the documentation files in reStructuredText format.
• lib/ - the standard library, including:
  • pure/ - modules in the standard library written in pure Nim.
  • impure/ - modules in the standard library written in pure Nim withdependencies written in other languages.
  • wrappers/ - modules that wrap dependencies written in other languages.
• tests/ - contains categorized tests for the compiler and standard library.
• tools/ - the tools includingniminst (mostly invoked viakoch).
• koch.nim - the tool used to bootstrap Nim, generate C sources, build the website,and generate the documentation.

If you are not familiar with making a pull request using GitHub and/or git, pleasereadthis guide.

Ideally, you should make sure that all tests pass before submitting a pull request.However, if you are short on time, you can just run the tests specific to yourchanges by only running the corresponding categories of tests. CI verifiesthat all tests pass before allowing the pull request to be accepted, so onlyrunning specific tests should be harmless.Integration tests should go intests/untestable.

If you're looking for ways to contribute, please look at ourissue tracker.There are always plenty of issues labeledEasy; these shouldbe a good starting point for an initial contribution to Nim.

You can also help with the development of Nim by making donations. Donations can bemade using:

• Open Collective
• Bitcoin

If you have any questions feel free to submit a question on theNim forum, or via IRC onthe #nim channel.

Thank you to all our backers! [Become a backer]

Support this project by becoming a sponsor. Your logo will show up here with a link to your website. [Become a sponsor]

You can also see a list of all our sponsors/backers from various payment services on thesponsors page of our website.

The compiler and the standard library are licensed under the MIT license, exceptfor some modules which explicitly state otherwise. As a result, you may use anycompatible license (essentially any license) for your own programs developed withNim. You are explicitly permitted to develop commercial applications using Nim.

Please read thecopying.txt file for more details.

Copyright © 2006-2025 Andreas Rumpf, all rights reserved.