Installation

May is distributed as source you can build with a C compiler, or as a Docker image you can run anywhere.

Build from source

Clone the repository and compile with gcc. May depends on libcurl for the HTTP client and pthread for concurrent connections.

Linux / macOS

git clone https://github.com/LandonHarter/maylang.git
cd maylang
mkdir -p bin
gcc -I ./include src/*.c src/lib/*.c main.c -o bin/may -lm -lcurl -lpthread

Move the binary somewhere on your PATH:

sudo mv bin/may /usr/local/bin/may

Dependencies

libcurlHTTP client used by the api module.

libc6Standard C library.

libmMath functions used by the math module.

libpthreadThreading for concurrent client handling.

On Debian/Ubuntu:

apt update && apt install -y build-essential libcurl4-openssl-dev

Run a script

Once installed, point may at any .may file:

may hello.may

Where hello.may could be:

import "io";
print("Hello world!");

Docker

A Dockerfile ships with the repository and is set up to run the documentation server. You can adapt it for your own apps:

FROM ubuntu:26.04 AS builder
RUN apt update && apt install -y curl git build-essential \
    libcurl4-openssl-dev libc6
RUN git clone https://github.com/LandonHarter/maylang.git /app
WORKDIR /app
RUN mkdir -p bin && gcc -I ./include src/*.c src/lib/*.c main.c \
    -o bin/may -lm -lcurl -lpthread

FROM ubuntu:26.04
RUN apt update && apt install -y libcurl4 libc6
COPY --from=builder /app/bin/may /usr/local/bin/may
COPY ./app /app
WORKDIR /app
CMD ["may", "server.may"]

That is everything. There is no package manager, no virtualenv, and no build script. One binary, one file to run.