cargo-local-install

Wraps cargo install for better local, non-conflicting installation

Want to script cargo install cargo-web --version 0.6 --root my-project to avoid version conflicts with other projects?
Hate having a million copies of cargo-web 0.6.26 and waiting for it to build if you go down that route?
cargo-local-install now has your back, and will create symlinks into a global cache of reusable bins:

Quickstart

# no dependencies, builds in < 3 seconds on my machine
cargo install cargo-local-install --no-default-features

# slow first builds that create new exes
cargo local-install --locked cargo-web --version "^0.6" --root project-a # symlinks project-a/bin/cargo-web.exe
cargo local-install --locked cargo-web --version "^0.5" --root project-b # symlinks project-b/bin/cargo-web.exe

# fast cached builds that reuse existing exes
cargo local-install --locked cargo-web --version "^0.6" --root project-c # symlinks project-c/bin/cargo-web.exe
cargo local-install --locked cargo-web --version "^0.6"                  # symlinks bin/cargo-web.exe

# Adds Cargo.toml metadata support, < 30 seconds
cargo install cargo-local-install

Options are broadly similar to cargo install, with a few caveats:

• --locked is strongly encouraged (warns by default unless it or --unlocked is used)
• --list, --no-track, --features, --bin, and --example are not supported
• --frozen and --offline are not supported (don't think they worked for cargo install either though!)
• -Z <FLAG> is not supported

Alternatively, you can specify workspace or package metadata in your Cargo.toml, similar to [dependencies], which will be installed by cargo local-install:

[workspace.metadata.local-install]
cargo-web = "0.6" # == "^0.6" - includes "0.6.26" - locked by default
cargo-web = { version = "0.6", registry = "crates.io", locked = false } # `locked = false` ignores cargo-web's Cargo.lock
cargo-web = { path = "../cargo-web" }
cargo-web = { git = "https://github.com/koute/cargo-web" }
cargo-web = { git = "https://github.com/koute/cargo-web", branch = "master" }
cargo-web = { git = "https://github.com/koute/cargo-web", rev = "a9895bf536e8ac6a0806382886b7be90138f01f3" }

# not (yet?) implemented:
#   features = [...]
#   default-features = false
#   optional = true

What? Why?

cargo install is great but suffers a few drawbacks:

• The global ~/.cargo/bin directory can contain only a single installed version of a package at a time - if you've got one project relying on cargo web 0.5 and another prjoect relying on cargo web 0.6, you're SOL.
• Forcing local installs with --root my/project to avoid global version conflicts means you must rebuild the entire dependency for each project, even when you use the exact same version for 100 other projects before.
• When building similar binaries, the lack of target directory caching means the entire dependency tree must still be rebuilt from scratch.

cargo local-install attempts to solve these problems:

• (Ab)uses --target-dir to share built dependencies.
• Creates a global cache of binaries, but installs a symlink (or copy if that fails) in ./bin by default.

Alternative: sccache

• github
• Pro: Can be combined with cargo-local-install, no need to pick and choose!
• Pro: Cache intermediate built crates for everything, not just installed bins
• Pro: Network cache options to share with others
• Con: Hundreds of dependencies if you're a weirdo who installs sccache from source
• Con: Lots of cache misses, at least when using cargo install ...

Some concrete numbers from some local testing with a global .cargo/config rustc-wrapper configured

with sccache configured for local disk	time	notes
cargo install cargo-web --root a	3m 38s	cleanish cache, no downloads
cargo install cargo-web --root a	~ 1 s	noop by cargo install
cargo install cargo-web --root b	1m 21s	many cache failures based on lurching progress speed?

with local-install (no sccache)	time	notes
cargo local-install cargo-web --root c	3m 03s	clean cache, no downloads of deps
cargo local-install cargo-web --root c	~ 1 s	noop by cargo install
cargo local-install cargo-web --root d	~ 1 s	trivial cache hit by cargo local-install

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.