Ownership System

Vix v0.3.0 introduces a lightweight Owner system: compile-time ownership and borrow checking for Rust-style memory safety with a simpler model.

Design Goals

• Memory safety without garbage collection
• Use-after-move detection
• Dangling reference detection
• Zero runtime overhead
• No explicit lifetime annotations

Compilation Phase

Ownership checking runs after type checking:

Parse → Semantic Analysis → Type Check → Ownership Check → CodeGen

Core Concepts

Concept	Description
Ownership	Each value has a unique owner
Move	Non-Copy types transfer ownership on assignment
Borrow	ref creates immutable reference, mut ref creates mutable
Copy	Small/simple types are automatically inferred as Copy

vs Rust

Aspect	Vix	Rust
Lifetimes	Statement-scoped	'a generic lifetimes
Copy inference	Heuristic automatic	Explicit trait
Borrow check	Statement-level temps	NLL
Drop	Not supported	Supported
Pin/Unpin	Not supported	Supported

Subtopics

• Reference Syntax
• Move Semantics
• Borrow Rules
• Copy Type Inference
• Optional References