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We have been working on a way for Roku devices to run C, C++, Rust, and other languages. Our goal is to bring the wealth of libraries written in these languages to the Roku platform and empower the developer to code in their language of choice.
We are looking for pilot customers that would be willing to trial run our product. The ideal customer has knowledge of compilers and build systems such as rustc/clang and cargo/CMake. If you are interested, please send a private message including your contact details and company name.
As a proof of concept, the following zip contains a “compiled to BrightScript” version of the C library duktape (https://duktape.org/) which is an implementation of JavaScript entirely in C. When loading the channel, you will see a keyboard where you can enter JavaScript and the result will be evaluated on the fly and printed above. The keyboard feeds directly to stdin, and the label above displays stdout. As such, the C/C++ source of the program is included and you may compile it and see the same results. The zip can be side-loaded, or you may add the channel:
https://my.roku.com/account/add/JavaScriptDemo
We can compile standard C/C++ programs that rely on libc and libc++ (C longjmp and C++ exceptions disabled), as well as Rust using an experimental platform. You can even call functions defined in BrightScript and vice versa using externs. The generated code has been tested against thousands of unit tests such as floating point behavior, signed and unsigned operations, control flow, indirect calls, memory loads and stores, etc.
More work is being done to expand the capabilities of this platform such as completing the file-system implementation, exposing POSIX sockets using roStreamSocket/roDataGramSocket, supporting longjmp and exceptions, and even researching potential POSIX thread implementations using Tasks.
We are excited to unveil this technology and look forward to what you will create with it.
