cargo-container

Wrap vanilla cargo rlibs/packages in generated "containers" for various ends.

Quickstart

• Clone this repository
• Open in VS Code
• Install extensions recommended by workspace
• Hit F5

This will build and run one of the example projects of example/multiplatform in Chrome

Basic Guide

• cargo install cargo-container
• Author a Container.toml workspace instead of a regular Cargo.toml workspace
  • Write a [workspace] like you would in Cargo.toml, with members (and optionally exclude)
  • Define one or more [[build]] sections defining what crates to wrap with what tools
  • Optional: specify more crates to auto-install via [local-install]
• Author the crates to wrap in said boilerplate
• Run cargo container build. This will:
  • Install any bin dependencies specified by [local-install]
  • Run tools to generate Cargo.toml projects
  • Generate a Cargo.toml alongside Container.toml that references the generated dependencies
  • Runs tools to build generated Cargo.toml projects
• Profit!

License

Licensed under either of

• Apache License, Version 2.0 (LICENSE-APACHE or http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0)
• MIT license (LICENSE-MIT or http://opensource.org/licenses/MIT)

at your option.

Contribution

Unless you explicitly state otherwise, any contribution intentionally submitted for inclusion in the work by you, as defined in the Apache-2.0 license, shall be dual licensed as above, without any additional terms or conditions.

Alternatives

Why not vanilla cargo / build.rs / metabuild scripts ?

• Cargo is intentionally not trying to support everything to keep things simple/sane. Understandable, but crippling.
• Dependency builds are isolated even when you have use cases for them modifying the final output.
• No support for additional build rules after invoking rustc.

There's already a slew of nonstandard build tools for various specialized needs as a result:

• cargo dinghy
• cargo apk
• cargo ndk
• cargo web
• cargo make
• rust-android-gradle
• wasm-pack

These are generally non-composable, incoherent, require extra setup steps to install, etc.

Why not cargo run tools -- [...] / .cargo/config aliases?

This is pretty neato.

• Intro: https://matklad.github.io/2018/01/03/make-your-own-make.html
• Example: https://github.com/rust-analyzer/rust-analyzer/blob/master/.cargo/config

I want something more zero-config/automatic/declarative for early projects though. Kind of a metabuild equivalent. I will steal as much inspiration from this as I can.

Why not cargo make ?

It seems pretty great, but has a few drawbacks:

• It's unopinionated and lacks standardization - projects will be inconsistent
• Bring your own build rules
• No sane defaults for way too many project types
• Little-to-no support for creating reusable standard rules, unless you count hardcoding wget s into your own makefiles - which I don't.

Why not [non rust toolchain] ?

• Packaging build rules in crates sounds neato.
• Auto-adding build rules based on dependencies sounds neato.