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cargo-raze: Bazel BUILD generation for Rust Crates

cargo-raze is currently an unmaintained and unsupported product.

crate_universe in rules_rust is a supported and maintained product with similar aims.

We believe crate_universe supports all of the functionality which was supported by cargo-raze. We encourage you to try to migrate to it. If you find missing support, or bugs, please file an issue or PR against rules_rust.

cargo-raze has been archived to reflect the reality that PRs and Issues filed against it are unlikely to be addressed.

Please reach out to #rust in the Bazel Slack if you are interested in taking over maintenance of this project.

An experimental support Cargo plugin for distilling a workspace-level Cargo.toml into BUILD targets that code using rules_rust can depend on directly.

Disclaimer

This is not an official Google product (experimental or otherwise), it is just code that happens to be owned by Google.

Overview

This project synthesizes the dependency resolution logic and some of the functionality of Cargo such as features and build scripts into executable rules that Bazel can run to compile Rust crates. Though the standard rules_rust rules can be used to compile Rust code from scratch, the fine granularity of the dependency ecosystem makes transforming dependency trees based on that ecosystem onerous, even for code with few dependencies.

Usage

cargo-raze can generate buildable targets in one of two modes: Vendoring, or Non-Vendoring. In the vendoring mode, developers use the common cargo vendor subcommand to retrieve the dependencies indicated by their workspace Cargo.toml into directories that cargo-raze then populates with BUILD files. In the non-vendoring mode, cargo-raze generates a flat list of BUILD files, and a workspace-level macro that can be invoked in the WORKSPACE file to pull down the dependencies automatically in similar fashion to Cargo itself.

In both cases, the first step is to decide where to situate the Cargo dependencies in the workspace. This library was designed with monorepos in mind, where an organization decides upon a set of dependencies that everyone points at. It is intended that stakeholders in the dependencies collaborate to upgrade dependencies atomically, and fix breakages across their codebase simultaneously. In the event that this isn't feasible, it is still possible to use cargo-raze in a decentralized scenario, but it's unlikely that such decoupled repositories would interact well together with the current implementation.

Regardless of the approach chosen, the rust_rules should be brought in to the WORKSPACE. Here is an example:

load("@bazel_tools//tools/build_defs/repo:http.bzl", "http_archive")

http_archive(
    name = "rules_rust",
    sha256 = "accb5a89cbe63d55dcdae85938e56ff3aa56f21eb847ed826a28a83db8500ae6",
    strip_prefix = "rules_rust-9aa49569b2b0dacecc51c05cee52708b7255bd98",
    urls = [
        # Main branch as of 2021-02-19
        "https://github.com/bazelbuild/rules_rust/archive/9aa49569b2b0dacecc51c05cee52708b7255bd98.tar.gz",
    ],
)

load("@rules_rust//rust:repositories.bzl", "rust_repositories")

rust_repositories(edition="2018")

Generate a Cargo.toml

For Bazel only projects, users should first generate a standard Cargo.toml with the dependencies of interest. Take care to include a [lib] directive so that Cargo does not complain about missing source files for this mock crate. Here is an example:

[package]
name = "compile_with_bazel"
version = "0.0.0"

# Mandatory (or Cargo tooling is unhappy)
[lib]
path = "fake_lib.rs"

[dependencies]
log = "=0.3.6"

Once the standard Cargo.toml is in place, add the [package.metadata.raze] directives per the next section.

Using existing Cargo.toml

Almost all canonical cargo setups should be able to function inplace with cargo-raze. Assuming the Cargo workspace is now nested under a Bazel workspace, Users can simply add RazeSettings to their Cargo.toml files to be used for generating Bazel files

# Above this line should be the contents of your Cargo.toml file

[package.metadata.raze]
# The path at which to write output files.
#
# `cargo raze` will generate Bazel-compatible BUILD files into this path.
# This can either be a relative path (e.g. "foo/bar"), relative to this
# Cargo.toml file; or relative to the Bazel workspace root (e.g. "//foo/bar").
workspace_path = "//cargo"

# This causes aliases for dependencies to be rendered in the BUILD
# file located next to this `Cargo.toml` file.
package_aliases_dir = "."

# The set of targets to generate BUILD rules for.
targets = [
    "x86_64-apple-darwin",
    "x86_64-pc-windows-msvc",
    "x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu",
]

# The two acceptable options are "Remote" and "Vendored" which
# is used to indicate whether the user is using a non-vendored or
# vendored set of dependencies.
genmode = "Remote"

Cargo workspace projects

In projects that use cargo workspaces users should organize all of their raze settings into the [workspace.metadata.raze] field in the top level Cargo.toml file which contains the [workspace] definition. These settings should be identical to the ones seen in [package.metadata.raze] in the previous section. However, crate settings may still be placed in the Cargo.toml files of the workspace members:

# Above this line should be the contents of your package's Cargo.toml file

# Note that `some-dependency` is the name of an example dependency and
# `<0.3.0` is a semver version for the dependency crate's version. This
# should always be compaitble in some way with the dependency version
# specified in the `[dependencies]` section of the package defined in
# this file
[package.metadata.raze.crates.some-dependency.'<0.3.0']
additional_flags = [
    "--cfg=optional_feature_a",
    "--cfg=optional_feature_b",
]

# This demonstrates that multiple crate settings may be defined.
[package.metadata.raze.crates.some-other-dependency.'*']
additional_flags = [
    "--cfg=special_feature",
]

Remote Dependency Mode

In Remote mode, a directory similar to the vendoring mode is selected. In this case, though, it contains only BUILD files, a vendoring instruction for the WORKSPACE, and aliases to the explicit dependencies. Slightly different plumbing is required.

This tells Raze not to expect the dependencies to be vendored and to generate different files.

Generate buildable targets

First, install cargo-raze.

$ cargo install cargo-raze

Next, execute cargo raze from within the cargo directory

$ cargo raze

Finally, invoke the remote library fetching function within your WORKSPACE:

load("//cargo:crates.bzl", "raze_fetch_remote_crates")

# Note that this method's name depends on your gen_workspace_prefix setting.
# `raze` is the default prefix.
raze_fetch_remote_crates()

This tells Bazel where to get the dependencies from, and how to build them: using the files generated into //cargo.

You can depend on any explicit dependencies in any Rust rule by depending on //cargo:your_dependency_name.

Vendoring Mode

In Vendoring mode, a root directly is selected that will house the vendored dependencies and become the gateway to those build rules. //cargo is conventional, but //third_party/cargo may be desirable to satisfy organizational needs. Vendoring directly into root isn't well supported due to implementation-specific idiosyncracies, but it may be supported in the future. From here forward, //cargo will be the assumed directory.

Generate buildable targets (vendored)

First, install the required tools for vendoring and generating BUILDable targets.

$ cargo install cargo-raze

Following that, vendor your dependencies from within the cargo/ directory. This will also update your Cargo.lock file.

$ cargo vendor --versioned-dirs

Finally, generate your BUILD files, again from within the cargo/ directory

$ cargo raze

You can now depend on any explicit dependencies in any Rust rule by depending on //cargo:your_dependency_name.

Using cargo-raze through Bazel

Cargo-raze can be built entirely in Bazel and used without needing to setup cargo on the host machine. To do so, simply add the following to the WORKSPACE file in your project:

load("@bazel_tools//tools/build_defs/repo:http.bzl", "http_archive")

http_archive(
    name = "cargo_raze",
    sha256 = "c664e258ea79e7e4ec2f2b57bca8b1c37f11c8d5748e02b8224810da969eb681",
    strip_prefix = "cargo-raze-0.11.0",
    url = "https://github.com/google/cargo-raze/archive/v0.11.0.tar.gz",
)

load("@cargo_raze//:repositories.bzl", "cargo_raze_repositories")

cargo_raze_repositories()

load("@cargo_raze//:transitive_deps.bzl", "cargo_raze_transitive_deps")

cargo_raze_transitive_deps()

With this in place, users can run the @cargo_raze//:raze target to generate new BUILD files. eg:

bazel run @cargo_raze//:raze -- --manifest-path=$(realpath /Cargo.toml)

Note that users using the vendored genmode will still have to vendor their dependencies somehow as cargo-raze does not currently do this for you.

Handling Unconventional Crates

Some crates execute a "build script", which, while technically unrestricted in what it can do, usually does one of a few common things.

All options noted below are enumerated in the src/settings.rs file.

Crates that generate files using locally known information

In some cases, a crate uses only basic information in order to generate a Rust source file. These build-scripts rules can actually be executed and used within Bazel by including a directive in your Cargo.toml prior to generation:

[package.metadata.raze.crates.clang-sys.'0.21.1']
gen_buildrs = true

This setting tells cargo-raze to generate a rust_binary target for the build script and to direct its generated (OUT_DIR-style) outputs to the parent crate.

Crates that depend on certain flags being determined by a build script

Some build scripts conditionally emit directives to stdout that Cargo knows how to propagate. Unfortunately, its not so simple to manage build-time generated dependency information, so if the flags are statically known (perhaps, since the compilation target is statically known), they can be provided from within the Cargo.toml, in the following manner

[package.metadata.raze.crates.unicase.'2.1.0']
additional_flags = [
    # Rustc is 1.15, enable all optional settings
    "--cfg=__unicase__iter_cmp",
    "--cfg=__unicase__defauler_hasher",
]

Flags provided in this manner are directly handed to rustc. It may be helpful to refer to the build-script section of the documentation to interpret build scripts and stdout directives that are encountered, available here: https://doc.rust-lang.org/cargo/reference/build-scripts.html

Crates that need system libraries

There are two ways to provide system libraries that a crate needs for compilation. The first is to vendor the system library directly, craft a BUILD rule for it, and add the dependency to the corresponding -sys crate. For openssl, this may in part look like:

[package.metadata.raze.crates.openssl-sys.'0.9.24']
additional_flags = [
    # Vendored openssl is 1.0.2m
    "--cfg=ossl102",
    "--cfg=version=102",
]
additional_deps = [
    "@//third_party/openssl:crypto",
    "@//third_party/openssl:ssl",
]

[package.metadata.raze.crates.openssl.'0.10.2']
additional_flags = [
    # Vendored openssl is 1.0.2m
    "--cfg=ossl102",
    "--cfg=version=102",
    "--cfg=ossl10x",
]

In some cases, directly wiring up a local system dependency may be preferable. To do this, refer to the new_local_repository section of the Bazel documentation. For a precompiled version of llvm in a WORKSPACE, this may look something like:

new_local_repository(
    name = "llvm",
    build_file = "BUILD.llvm.bazel",
    path = "/usr/lib/llvm-3.9",
)

In a few cases, the sys crate may need to be overridden entirely. This can be facilitated by removing and supplementing dependencies in the Cargo.toml, pre-generation:

[package.metadata.raze.crates.sdl2.'0.31.0']
skipped_deps = [
    "sdl2-sys-0.31.0"
]
additional_deps = [
    "@//cargo/overrides/sdl2-sys:sdl2_sys"
]

Crates that supply useful binaries

Some crates provide useful binaries that themselves can be used as part of a compilation process: Bindgen is a great example. Bindgen produces Rust source files by processing C or C++ files. A directive can be added to the Cargo.toml to tell Bazel to expose such binaries for you:

[package.metadata.raze.crates.bindgen.'0.32.2']
gen_buildrs = true # needed to build bindgen
extra_aliased_targets = [
    "cargo_bin_bindgen"
]

Cargo-raze prefixes binary targets with cargo_bin_, as although Cargo permits binaries and libraries to share the same target name, Bazel disallows this.

Crates that only provide binaries

Currently, cargo does not gather metadata about crates that do not provide any libraries. This means that these specifying them in the [dependencies] section of your Cargo.toml file will not result in generated Bazel targets. Cargo-raze has a special field to handle these crates when using genmode = "Remote":

[package.metadata.raze.binary_deps]
wasm-bindgen-cli = "0.2.68"

In the snippet above, the wasm-bindgen-cli crate is defined as binary dependency and Cargo-raze will ensure metadata for this and any other crate defined here are included in the resulting output directory. Lockfiles for targets specified under [package.metadata.raze.binary_deps] will be generated into a lockfiles directory inside the path specified by workspace_path.

Note that the binary_deps field can go in workspace and package metadata, however, only one definition of a binary dependency can exist at a time. If you have multiple packages that depend on a single binary dependency, that definition needs to be be moved to the workspace metadata.

Build scripts by default

Setting default_gen_buildrs to true will cause cargo-raze to generate build scripts for all crates that require them:

[package.metadata.raze]
workspace_path = "//cargo"
genmode = "Remote"
default_gen_buildrs = true

This setting is a trade-off between convenience and correctness. By enabling it, you should find many crates work without having to specify any flags explicitly, and without having to manually enable individual build scripts. But by turning it on, you are allowing all of the crates you are using to run arbitrary code at build time, and the actions they perform may not be hermetic.

Even with this setting enabled, you may still need to provide extra settings for a few crates. For example, the ring crate needs access to the source tree at build time:

[package.metadata.raze.crates.ring.'*']
compile_data_attr = "glob([\"**/*.der\"])"

If you wish to disable the build script on an individual crate, you can do so as follows:

[package.metadata.raze.crates.some_dependency.'*']
gen_buildrs = false

FAQ

Why choose Bazel to build a Rust project?

Bazel ("fast", "correct", choose two) is a battle-tested build system used by Google to compile incredibly large, multilingual projects without duplicating effort, and without compromising on correctness. It accomplishes this in part by limiting what mechanisms a given compilation object can use to discover dependencies and by forcing buildable units to express the complete set of their dependencies. It expects two identical sets of build target inputs to produce a byte-for-byte equivalent final result.

In exchange, users are rewarded with a customizable and extensible build system that compiles any kind of compilable target and allows expressing "unconventional dependencies", such as Protobuf objects, precompiled graphics shaders, or generated code, while remaining fast and correct.

Its also probable (though not yet demonstrated with benchmarks) that large applications built with Bazel's strengths in mind: highly granular build units, will compile significantly faster as they are able to cache more aggressively and avoid recompilation of as much code while iterating.

Why try to integrate Cargo's dependencies into this build tool?

For better or worse, the Rust ecosystem heavily depends on Cargo crates in order to provide functionality that is often present in standard libraries. This is actually a fantastic thing for the evolution of the language, as it describes a structured process to stabilization (experimental crate -> 1.0 crate -> RFC -> inclusion in stdlib), but it means that people who lack access to this ecosystem must reinvent many wheels.

Putting that aside there are also fantastic crates that help Rust developers interact with industry standard systems and libraries which can greatly accelerate development in the language.

Why not build directly with Cargo / Why generate rustc invocations?

Though the burden of emulating Cargo's functionality (where possible at all!) is high, it appears to be the only way to maintain the guarantees (correctness, reproducibility) that Bazel depends on to stay performant. It is possible and likely with inflight RFCs that Cargo will become sufficiently flexible to allow it to be used directly for compilation but at this point in time it appears that maintaining a semblance of feature parity is actually easier than avoiding all of the sharp edges introduced by treating Cargo like the Rust compiler.

What is buildable right now with Bazel, and what is not?

With a little bit of elbow grease it is possible to build nearly everything, including projects that depend on openssl-sys. Many sys crates will require identifying the system library that they wrap, and either vendoring it into the project, or telling Bazel where it lives on your system. Some may require minor source tweaks, such as eliminating hardcoded cargo environment variable requirements. Fixes can be non-trivial in a few cases, but a good number of the most popular crates have been built in an example repo, available at https://github.com/acmcarther/cargo-raze-crater

Example Repos

See these examples of providing crate configuration:

Using vendored mode:

• hello-cargo-library
• complicated-cargo-library
• non-cratesio

Using remote mode:

• complicated-example
• non-cratesio

Compiling OpenSSL:

• openssl

The [package.metadata.raze] section is derived from a struct declared in impl/src/settings.rs.