Source Encoding

Zig source code is encoded in UTF-8. An invalid UTF-8 byte sequence results in a compile error.

Throughout all zig source code (including in comments), some codepoints are never allowed:

• Ascii control characters, except for U+000a (LF): U+0000 - U+0009, U+000b - U+0001f, U+007f. (Note that Windows line endings (CRLF) are not allowed, and hard tabs are not allowed.)
• Non-Ascii Unicode line endings: U+0085 (NEL), U+2028 (LS), U+2029 (PS).

The codepoint U+000a (LF) (which is encoded as the single-byte value 0x0a) is the line terminator character. This character always terminates a line of zig source code (except possbly the last line of the file).

For some discussion on the rationale behind these design decisions, see issue #663