Status

This project is currently UNMAINTAINED. If you would like to become a maintainer, open a Github issue.

I'm no longer using this. Since cargo install is now a thing, I prefer to create a single project with all my scripts and just cargo install it, instead of having a bunch of rustic scripts scattered all over the place. That way I can do some code reuse between all the scripts without having to create yet another crate.

-- @japaric, 2016/02/08

---

rustic

Rustic scripts (#!/usr/bin/rustic) with access to the Cargo ecosystem

One-minute Introduction

rustic is a cargo wrapper that lets you run rust source files!

$ cat hello.rs
fn main() {
    println!("Hello, world!");
}

$ rustic hello.rs
Hello, world!

Shebangs also work!

$ cat script.rs
#!/usr/bin/rustic

fn main() {
    println!("This is a rust script!");
}

$ ./script.rs
This is a rust script!

All the arguments minus the first one will be passed to the resulting binary.

$ cat args.rs
#!/usr/bin/rustic

use std::env;

fn main() {
    println!("{:?}", env::args_os().skip(1).collect::<Vec<_>>());
}

$ rustic args.rs a b c
["a", "b", "c"]

$ ./args.rs a b c
["a", "b", "c"]

Because rustic is cargo powered you can access the whole cargo ecosystem by embedding a Cargo.toml in the comments of your source file.

$ cat rand.rs
// Cargo.toml
//
// [dependencies]
// rand = "*"

extern crate rand;

use rand::Rng;

fn main() {
    println!("{}", rand::thread_rng().next_u32());
}

$ time rustic rand.rs
rustic rand.rs  5.79s user 0.22s system 89% cpu 6.729 total
3649997390

Each rustic script is backed by a cargo project, so the first run is always slow, but subsequent executions have minimal start up time.

$ time rustic rand.rs
rustic rand.rs  0.00s user 0.00s system 73% cpu 0.005 total
3089271122

Installation and dependencies

rustic depends on cargo, which depends on rustc, so you need to have both installed. You can install both using rustup.sh or multirust.

There is no cargo install (yet), so for now you'll have to manually build the project and install it.

$ git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/japaric/rustic
$ cd rustic
$ cargo build --release
$ sudo cp target/release/rustic /usr/bin

How it works?

• For each source file, rustic keeps a binary cargo project in your cache directory ($HOME/.cache/rustic). rustic derives the name of the cargo project from the name of the source file (e.g. rand.rs -> rand) and uses the source file as the project's main.rs file. Note that two source files with the same name but located in different parts of your filesystem will be mapped to the same cargo project.

• The project's Cargo.toml will be the original one created by cargo new plus the one found in the comments of the source file. rustic expects the source's Cargo.toml to be in a single comment block that starts with // Cargo.toml, the location of the comment block is not important.

• rustic rebuilds the cargo project only when the source file has been "modified". On each build, rustic updates a time.stamp file that contains the last modification date of the source file. A project has been "modified" when its modification date is greater that the one in the time.stamp.

You can get a better grasp of the inner workings by looking at the debug logs.

$ export RUST_LOG=rustic
$ rustic rand.rs
DEBUG:rustic::cargo: Project::new("rand.rs")
DEBUG:rustic::cargo: Project::new: using absolute path: "/home/japaric/Projects/rustic/examples/rand.rs"
DEBUG:rustic::cargo: Project::new: using "rand" as project name
DEBUG:rustic::cargo: Project::new: project "rand" already exists
DEBUG:rustic::cargo: Project::new: removing old `src/main.rs` file
DEBUG:rustic::cargo: Project::new: OK
DEBUG:rustic::cargo: Project::new: updating `src/main.rs` symlink
DEBUG:rustic::cargo: Project::new: OK
DEBUG:rustic::cargo: Project::modified: opening `src/main.rs`
DEBUG:rustic::cargo: Project::modified: OK
DEBUG:rustic::cargo: Project::modified: `src/main.rs` was last modified on 1428483392438
DEBUG:rustic::cargo: Project::timestamp: reading `time.stamp`
DEBUG:rustic::cargo: Project::timestamp: OK
DEBUG:rustic::cargo: Project::timestamp: got 1428483392438
DEBUG:rustic::cargo: Project::modified: NO, last modified on 1428483392438, timestamp was 1428483392438
DEBUG:rustic::cargo: Project::run: `"/home/japaric/.cache/rustic/rand/target/release/rand"`
2495710899

Problems? Ideas?

Found a bug? Got a cool feature in mind? Documentation is lacking? Please open an issue to let me know.

License

rustic is dual licensed under the Apache 2.0 license and the MIT license.

See LICENSE-APACHE and LICENSE-MIT for more details.