f60bc3ac0c
rework the README.md for rustc and add other readmes
OK, so, long ago I committed to the idea of trying to write some high-level documentation for rustc. This has proved to be much harder for me to get done than I thought it would! This PR is far from as complete as I had hoped, but I wanted to open it so that people can give me feedback on the conventions that it establishes. If this seems like a good way forward, we can land it and I will open an issue with a good check-list of things to write (and try to take down some of them myself).
Here are the conventions I established on which I would like feedback.
**Use README.md files**. First off, I'm aiming to keep most of the high-level docs in `README.md` files, rather than entries on forge. My thought is that such files are (a) more discoverable than forge and (b) closer to the code, and hence can be edited in a single PR. However, since they are not *in the code*, they will naturally get out of date, so the intention is to focus on the highest-level details, which are least likely to bitrot. I've included a few examples of common functions and so forth, but never tried to (e.g.) exhaustively list the names of functions and so forth.
- I would like to use the tidy scripts to try and check that these do not go out of date. Future work.
**librustc/README.md as the main entrypoint.** This seems like the most natural place people will look first. It lays out how the crates are structured and **is intended** to give pointers to the main data structures of the compiler (I didn't update that yet; the existing material is terribly dated).
**A glossary listing abbreviations and things.** It's much harder to read code if you don't know what some obscure set of letters like `infcx` stands for.
**Major modules each have their own README.md that documents the high-level idea.** For example, I wrote some stuff about `hir` and `ty`. Both of them have many missing topics, but I think that is roughly the level of depth that would be good. The idea is to give people a "feeling" for what the code does.
What is missing primarily here is lots of content. =) Here are some things I'd like to see:
- A description of what a QUERY is and how to define one
- Some comments for `librustc/ty/maps.rs`
- An overview of how compilation proceeds now (i.e., the hybrid demand-driven and forward model) and how we would like to see it going in the future (all demand-driven)
- Some coverage of how incremental will work under red-green
- An updated list of the major IRs in use of the compiler (AST, HIR, TypeckTables, MIR) and major bits of interesting code (typeck, borrowck, etc)
- More advice on how to use `x.py`, or at least pointers to that
- Good choice for `config.toml`
- How to use `RUST_LOG` and other debugging flags (e.g., `-Zverbose`, `-Ztreat-err-as-bug`)
- Helpful conventions for `debug!` statement formatting
cc @rust-lang/compiler @mgattozzi
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| .gitignore | ||
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| .mailmap | ||
| .travis.yml | ||
| appveyor.yml | ||
| CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md | ||
| config.toml.example | ||
| configure | ||
| CONTRIBUTING.md | ||
| COPYRIGHT | ||
| LICENSE-APACHE | ||
| LICENSE-MIT | ||
| README.md | ||
| RELEASES.md | ||
| x.py | ||
The Rust Programming Language
This is the main source code repository for Rust. It contains the compiler, standard library, and documentation.
Quick Start
Read "Installation" from The Book.
Building from Source
-
Make sure you have installed the dependencies:
g++4.7 or later orclang++3.x or laterpython2.7 (but not 3.x)- GNU
make3.81 or later cmake3.4.3 or latercurlgit
-
Clone the source with
git:$ git clone https://github.com/rust-lang/rust.git $ cd rust
-
Build and install:
$ ./x.py build && sudo ./x.py installNote: Install locations can be adjusted by copying the config file from
./config.toml.exampleto./config.toml, and adjusting theprefixoption under[install]. Various other options, such as enabling debug information, are also supported, and are documented in the config file.When complete,
sudo ./x.py installwill place several programs into/usr/local/bin:rustc, the Rust compiler, andrustdoc, the API-documentation tool. This install does not include Cargo, Rust's package manager, which you may also want to build.
Building on Windows
There are two prominent ABIs in use on Windows: the native (MSVC) ABI used by Visual Studio, and the GNU ABI used by the GCC toolchain. Which version of Rust you need depends largely on what C/C++ libraries you want to interoperate with: for interop with software produced by Visual Studio use the MSVC build of Rust; for interop with GNU software built using the MinGW/MSYS2 toolchain use the GNU build.
MinGW
MSYS2 can be used to easily build Rust on Windows:
-
Grab the latest MSYS2 installer and go through the installer.
-
Run
mingw32_shell.batormingw64_shell.batfrom wherever you installed MSYS2 (i.e.C:\msys64), depending on whether you want 32-bit or 64-bit Rust. (As of the latest version of MSYS2 you have to runmsys2_shell.cmd -mingw32ormsys2_shell.cmd -mingw64from the command line instead) -
From this terminal, install the required tools:
# Update package mirrors (may be needed if you have a fresh install of MSYS2) $ pacman -Sy pacman-mirrors # Install build tools needed for Rust. If you're building a 32-bit compiler, # then replace "x86_64" below with "i686". If you've already got git, python, # or CMake installed and in PATH you can remove them from this list. Note # that it is important that you do **not** use the 'python2' and 'cmake' # packages from the 'msys2' subsystem. The build has historically been known # to fail with these packages. $ pacman -S git \ make \ diffutils \ tar \ mingw-w64-x86_64-python2 \ mingw-w64-x86_64-cmake \ mingw-w64-x86_64-gcc -
Navigate to Rust's source code (or clone it), then build it:
$ ./x.py build && ./x.py install
MSVC
MSVC builds of Rust additionally require an installation of Visual Studio 2013
(or later) so rustc can use its linker. Make sure to check the “C++ tools”
option.
With these dependencies installed, you can build the compiler in a cmd.exe
shell with:
> python x.py build
Currently building Rust only works with some known versions of Visual Studio. If you have a more recent version installed the build system doesn't understand then you may need to force rustbuild to use an older version. This can be done by manually calling the appropriate vcvars file before running the bootstrap.
CALL "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 14.0\VC\bin\amd64\vcvars64.bat"
python x.py build
Specifying an ABI
Each specific ABI can also be used from either environment (for example, using the GNU ABI in powershell) by using an explicit build triple. The available Windows build triples are:
- GNU ABI (using GCC)
i686-pc-windows-gnux86_64-pc-windows-gnu
- The MSVC ABI
i686-pc-windows-msvcx86_64-pc-windows-msvc
The build triple can be specified by either specifying --build=<triple> when
invoking x.py commands, or by copying the config.toml file (as described
in Building From Source), and modifying the build option under the [build]
section.
Configure and Make
While it's not the recommended build system, this project also provides a
configure script and makefile (the latter of which just invokes x.py).
$ ./configure
$ make && sudo make install
When using the configure script, the generated config.mk file may override the
config.toml file. To go back to the config.toml file, delete the generated
config.mk file.
Building Documentation
If you’d like to build the documentation, it’s almost the same:
$ ./x.py doc
The generated documentation will appear under doc in the build directory for
the ABI used. I.e., if the ABI was x86_64-pc-windows-msvc, the directory will be
build\x86_64-pc-windows-msvc\doc.
Notes
Since the Rust compiler is written in Rust, it must be built by a precompiled "snapshot" version of itself (made in an earlier state of development). As such, source builds require a connection to the Internet, to fetch snapshots, and an OS that can execute the available snapshot binaries.
Snapshot binaries are currently built and tested on several platforms:
| Platform / Architecture | x86 | x86_64 |
|---|---|---|
| Windows (7, 8, Server 2008 R2) | ✓ | ✓ |
| Linux (2.6.18 or later) | ✓ | ✓ |
| OSX (10.7 Lion or later) | ✓ | ✓ |
You may find that other platforms work, but these are our officially supported build environments that are most likely to work.
Rust currently needs between 600MiB and 1.5GiB to build, depending on platform. If it hits swap, it will take a very long time to build.
There is more advice about hacking on Rust in CONTRIBUTING.md.
Getting Help
The Rust community congregates in a few places:
- Stack Overflow - Direct questions about using the language.
- users.rust-lang.org - General discussion and broader questions.
- /r/rust - News and general discussion.
Contributing
To contribute to Rust, please see CONTRIBUTING.
Rust has an IRC culture and most real-time collaboration happens in a variety of channels on Mozilla's IRC network, irc.mozilla.org. The most popular channel is #rust, a venue for general discussion about Rust. And a good place to ask for help would be #rust-beginners.
License
Rust is primarily distributed under the terms of both the MIT license and the Apache License (Version 2.0), with portions covered by various BSD-like licenses.
See LICENSE-APACHE, LICENSE-MIT, and COPYRIGHT for details.