# Vala Reference Manual

Vala is a high level programming language that produces binaries for the native platform. The binaries maintain the C Application Binary Interface (ABI) and can be built as either an application or a library.

The Vala Reference Manual gives details on Vala's syntax and type system, including polymorphism using interfaces and type parameters (generics). Vala includes additional code generation routines, for example D-Bus inter-process communication and GTK+3 composite templates, these are only referred to in the Attributes section. The reference manual does not provide a tutorial for these features.

Vala is developed in a collaborative and self-supporting way by its users. They provide bug reports, documentation, patches, patch reviews and core development. Following this model of development the manual has an editable version at https://wiki.gnome.org/Projects/Vala/Manual .

Vala version: | 0.56
Release: | 0.56.19
Status: | Draft, document contains omissions and might contain errors
Copyright: | © The GNOME Project 2026
License: | Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International