rust-hello-cargo

An introduction to Cargo. This is the Hello, Cargo! example from The Rust Programming Language book.

What is Cargo?

Rusts build system and package manager.

• Builds your code
• Downloads the dependencies of your code
• Builds those dependencies
• Installed with Rust through main channels
• Ensures a repeatable build

Cargo does 4 things:

• Introduces two metadata files with various bits of package information.
• Fetches and builds your package’s dependencies.
• Invokes rustc or another build tool with the correct parameters to build your package.
• Introduces conventions to make working with Rust packages easier.

cargo new

This command will create a new Cargo package in the given directory. This includes a simple template with a Cargo.toml manifest, sample source file, and a VCS ignore file. If the directory is not already in a VCS repository, then a new repository is created...

> cargo new hello_cargo

cargo new hello_cargo creates a new project called, "hello_cargo" and Cargo creates its files in a directory of the same name. This is the contents of .\hello_cargo:

C:.
│   .gitignore
│   Cargo.toml
│
└───src
        main.rs

Cargo.toml

The Cargo.toml file for each package is called its manifest. Every manifest file consists of one or more sections.

[package]
name = "hello_cargo"
version = "0.1.0"
authors = ["Peter <[email protected]>"]
edition = "2018"

# See more keys and their definitions at https://doc.rust-lang.org/cargo/reference/manifest.html

[dependencies]

[package]

• Indicates section of statements necessary for program compilation.
• Name and email are sourced from environment, so edit if necessary.

[dependencies]

• Section to list project dependencies.
• In Rust, packages are referred to as Crates.
• This example has no dependencies.

.\src directory

• Cargo expects source files to live inside .\src directory.
• Top level of a project directory is for README, LICENSE and other non-code related files.
• Everything has its place!

cargo build

Compile local packages and all of their dependencies.

PS C:\Users\peter\Documents\rust-projects\hello_cargo> cargo build
   Compiling hello_cargo v0.1.0 (C:\Users\peter\Documents\rust-projects\hello_cargo)
    Finished dev [unoptimized + debuginfo] target(s) in 3.67s

Directory structure after build:

C:.
│   .gitignore
│   Cargo.lock
│   Cargo.toml
│
├───src
│       main.rs
│
└───target
    │   .rustc_info.json
    │
    └───debug
        │   .cargo-lock
        │   hello_cargo.d
        │   hello_cargo.exe
        │   hello_cargo.pdb
        │
        ├───.fingerprint
        │   └───hello_cargo-a395dae34745bcde
        │           bin-hello_cargo-a395dae34745bcde
        │           bin-hello_cargo-a395dae34745bcde.json
        │           dep-bin-hello_cargo-a395dae34745bcde
        │           invoked.timestamp
        │
        ├───build
        ├───deps
        │       hello_cargo-a395dae34745bcde.d
        │       hello_cargo-a395dae34745bcde.exe
        │       hello_cargo-a395dae34745bcde.pdb
        │
        ├───examples
        └───incremental
            └───hello_cargo-22f3bxmqxbfgr
                │   s-fiqu004mlt-oglb32.lock
                │
                └───s-fiqu004mlt-oglb32-140ltojrvnqu3
                        1u61dt6owvp097js.o
                        2dx4eoeffqq8ely7.o
                        3ws2uvgmoh0tnkqn.o
                        4fgpioc2zyfydswo.o
                        58xt47pe0vk38jpg.o
                        dep-graph.bin
                        kvbkhulsununltn.o
                        query-cache.bin
                        work-products.bin

• Executable file at .\target\debug\hello_cargo.exe.
• Cargo.lock at top level keeps track of exact version of project dependencies. Never manually edit this file, Cargo manages it.
• --release flag compiles the project with optimisations that result in a slower compilation but faster executable. Always use --release flag for profiling and production releases. E.g.:

  PS C:\Users\peter\Documents\rust-projects\hello_cargo> cargo build --release
  Compiling hello_cargo v0.1.0 (C:\Users\peter\Documents\rust-projects\hello_cargo)
  Finished release [optimized] target(s) in 0.36s
  

  Adds the .\target\release\ directory:

  ...
  └───target
      │
      ...
      │
      └───release
              │   .cargo-lock
              │   hello_cargo.d
              │   hello_cargo.exe
              │   hello_cargo.pdb
              │
              ├───.fingerprint
              │   └───hello_cargo-147a78feb613f770
              │           bin-hello_cargo-147a78feb613f770
              │           bin-hello_cargo-147a78feb613f770.json
              │           dep-bin-hello_cargo-147a78feb613f770
              │           invoked.timestamp
              │
              ├───build
              ├───deps
              │       hello_cargo-147a78feb613f770.d
              │       hello_cargo-147a78feb613f770.exe
              │       hello_cargo-147a78feb613f770.pdb
              │
              ├───examples
              └───incremental
  

cargo run

Run the current package

• Will compile the package if necessary.

cargo check

Check a local package and all of its dependencies for errors. This will essentially compile the packages without performing the final step of code generation, which is faster than running cargo build.

• Allows for faster dev iteration with frequent code checking.