--- /dev/null
+% Rust Packaging Tutorial
+
+# Introduction
+
+Sharing is caring. Rust comes with a tool, `rustpkg`, which allows you to
+package up your Rust code and share it with other people. This tutorial will
+get you started on all of the concepts and commands you need to give the gift
+of Rust code to someone else.
+
+## Installing External Packages
+
+First, let's try to use an external package somehow. I've made a sample package
+called `hello` to demonstrate how to do so. Here's how `hello` is used:
+
+~~~~
+extern mod hello;
+
+fn main() {
+ hello::world();
+}
+~~~~
+
+Easy! But if you try to compile this, you'll get an error:
+
+~~~~ {.notrust}
+$ rustc main.rs
+main.rs:1:0: 1:17 error: can't find crate for `hello`
+main.rs:1 extern mod hello;
+ ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+
+~~~~
+
+This makes sense, as we haven't gotten it from anywhere yet! Luckily for us,
+`rustpkg` has an easy way to fetch others' code: the `install` command. It's
+used like this:
+
+~~~ {.notrust}
+$ rustpkg install pkg_id
+~~~
+
+This will install a package named 'pkg_id' into your current Rust environment.
+I called it 'pkg_id' in this example because `rustpkg` calls this a 'package
+identifier.' When using it with an external package like this, it's often a
+URI fragment. You see, Rust has no central authority for packages. You can
+build your own `hello` library if you want, and that's fine. We'd both host
+them in different places and different projects would rely on whichever version
+they preferred.
+
+To install the `hello` library, simply run this in your terminal:
+
+~~~ {.notrust}
+$ rustpkg install github.com/steveklabnik/hello
+~~~
+
+You should see a message that looks like this:
+
+~~~ {.notrust}
+note: Installed package github.com/steveklabnik/hello-0.1 to /some/path/.rust
+~~~
+
+Now, compiling our example should work:
+
+~~~ {.notrust}
+$ rustc main.rs
+$ ./main
+Hello, world.
+~~~
+
+Simple! That's all it takes.
+
+## Workspaces
+
+Before we can talk about how to make packages of your own, you have to
+understand the big concept with `rustpkg`: workspaces. A 'workspace' is simply
+a directory that has certain sub-directories that `rustpkg` expects. Different
+Rust projects will go into different workspaces.
+
+A workspace consists of any directory that has the following
+directories:
+
+* `src`: The directory where all the source code goes.
+* `build`: This directory contains all of the build output.
+* `lib`: The directory where any libraries distributed with the package go.
+* `bin`: This directory holds any binaries distributed with the package.
+
+There are also default file names you'll want to follow as well:
+
+* `main.rs`: A file that's going to become an executable.
+* `lib.rs`: A file that's going to become a library.
+
+## Building your own Package
+
+Now that you've got workspaces down, let's build your own copy of `hello`. Go
+to wherever you keep your personal projects, and let's make all of the
+directories we'll need. I'll refer to this personal project directory as
+`~/src` for the rest of this tutorial.
+
+### Creating our workspace
+
+~~~ {.notrust}
+$ cd ~/src
+$ mkdir -p hello/src/hello
+$ cd hello
+~~~
+
+Easy enough! Let's do one or two more things that are nice to do:
+
+~~~ {.notrust}
+$ git init .
+$ cat > README.md
+# hello
+
+A simple package for Rust.
+
+## Installation
+
+```
+$ rustpkg install github.com/YOUR_USERNAME/hello
+```
+^D
+$ cat > .gitignore
+.rust
+build
+^D
+$ git commit -am "Initial commit."
+~~~
+
+If you're not familliar with the `cat >` idiom, it will make files with the
+text you type inside. Control-D (`^D`) ends the text for the file.
+
+Anyway, we've got a README and a `.gitignore`. Let's talk about that
+`.gitignore` for a minute: we are ignoring two directories, `build` and
+`.rust`. `build`, as we discussed earlier, is for build artifacts, and we don't
+want to check those into a repository. `.rust` is a directory that `rustpkg`
+uses to keep track of its own settings, as well as the source code of any other
+external packages that this workspace uses. This is where that `rustpkg
+install` puts all of its files. Those are also not to go into our repository,
+so we ignore it all as well.
+
+Next, let's add a source file:
+
+~~~
+#[desc = "A hello world Rust package."];
+#[license = "MIT"];
+
+pub fn world() {
+ println("Hello, world.");
+}
+~~~
+
+Put this into `src/hello/lib.rs`. Let's talk about each of these attributes:
+
+### Crate attributes for packages
+
+`license` is equally simple: the license we want this code to have. I chose MIT
+here, but you should pick whatever license makes the most sense for you.
+
+`desc` is a description of the package and what it does. This should just be a
+sentence or two.
+
+### Building your package
+
+Building your package is simple:
+
+~~~ {.notrust}
+$ rustpkg build hello
+~~~
+
+This will compile `src/hello/lib.rs` into a library. After this process
+completes, you'll want to check out `build`:
+
+~~~ {.notrust}
+$ ls build/x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu/hello/
+libhello-ed8619dad9ce7d58-0.1.0.so
+~~~
+
+This directory naming structure is called a 'build triple,' and is because I'm
+on 64 bit Linux. Yours may differ based on platform.
+
+You'll also notice that `src/hello/lib.rs` turned into
+`libhello-ed8619dad9ce7d58-0.1.0.so`. This is a simple combination of the
+library name, a hash of its content, and the version.
+
+Now that your library builds, you'll want to commit:
+
+~~~ {.notrust}
+$ git add src
+$ git commit -m "Adding source code."
+~~~
+
+If you're using GitHub, after creating the project, do this:
+
+~~~ {.notrust}
+$ git remote add origin git@github.com:YOUR_USERNAME/hello.git
+$ git push origin -u master
+~~~
+
+Now you can install and use it! Go anywhere else in your filesystem:
+
+~~~ {.notrust}
+$ cd ~/src/foo
+$ rustpkg install github/YOUR_USERNAME/hello
+WARNING: The Rust package manager is experimental and may be unstable
+note: Installed package github.com/YOUR_USERNAME/hello-0.1 to /home/yourusername/src/hello/.rust
+~~~
+
+That's it!
+
+## More resources
+
+There's a lot more going on with `rustpkg`, this is just to get you started.
+Check out [the rustpkg manual](rustpkg.html) for the full details on how to
+customize `rustpkg`.
+
+A tag was created on GitHub specifically for `rustpkg`-related issues. You can
+[see all the Issues for rustpkg
+here](https://github.com/mozilla/rust/issues?direction=desc&labels=A-pkg&sort=created&state=open),
+with bugs as well as new feature plans. `rustpkg` is still under development,
+and so may be a bit flaky at the moment.
+
+You may also want to check out [this blog
+post](http://tim.dreamwidth.org/1820526.html), which contains some of the early
+design decisions and justifications.
projects / rust.git / commitdiff