Corrosion documentation

Usage

Automatically import crate targets with corrosion_import_crate

In order to integrate a Rust crate into CMake, you first need to import Rust crates from a package or workspace. Corrosion provides corrosion_import_crate() to automatically import crates defined in a Cargo.toml Manifest file:

corrosion_import_crate(
        MANIFEST_PATH <path/to/cargo.toml>
        [ALL_FEATURES]
        [NO_DEFAULT_FEATURES]
        [NO_STD]
        [NO_LINKER_OVERRIDE]
        [NO_USES_TERMINAL]
        [LOCKED]
        [FROZEN]
        [PROFILE <cargo-profile>]
        [IMPORTED_CRATES <variable-name>]
        [CRATE_TYPES <crate_type1> ... <crate_typeN>]
        [OVERRIDE_CRATE_TYPE <crate_name>=<crate_type1,crate_type2,...> ...]
        [CRATES <crate1> ... <crateN>]
        [FEATURES <feature1> ... <featureN>]
        [FLAGS <flag1> ... <flagN>]
)

• MANIFEST_PATH: Path to a Cargo.toml Manifest file.
• ALL_FEATURES: Equivalent to --all-features passed to cargo build
• NO_DEFAULT_FEATURES: Equivalent to --no-default-features passed to cargo build
• NO_STD: Disable linking of standard libraries (required for no_std crates).
• NO_LINKER_OVERRIDE: Will let Rust/Cargo determine which linker to use instead of corrosion (when linking is invoked by Rust)
• NO_USES_TERMINAL: Don't pass the USES_TERMINAL flag when creating the custom CMake targets.
• LOCKED: Pass --locked to cargo build and cargo metadata.
• FROZEN: Pass --frozen to cargo build and cargo metadata.
• PROFILE: Specify cargo build profile (dev/release or a custom profile; bench and test are not supported)
• IMPORTED_CRATES: Save the list of imported crates into the variable with the provided name in the current scope.
• CRATE_TYPES: Only import the specified crate types. Valid values: staticlib, cdylib, bin.
• OVERRIDE_CRATE_TYPE: Override the crate-types of a cargo crate with the given comma-separated values. Internally uses the rustc flag --crate-type to override the crate-type. Valid values for the crate types are the library types staticlib and cdylib.
• CRATES: Only import the specified crates from a workspace. Values: Crate names.
• FEATURES: Enable the specified features. Equivalent to --features passed to cargo build.
• FLAGS: Arbitrary flags to cargo build.

Corrosion will use cargo metadata to add a cmake target for each crate defined in the Manifest file and add the necessary rules to build the targets. For Rust executables an IMPORTED executable target is created with the same name as defined in the [[bin]] section of the Manifest corresponding to this target. If no such name was defined the target name defaults to the Rust package name. For Rust library targets an INTERFACE library target is created with the same name as defined in the [lib] section of the Manifest. This INTERFACE library links an internal corrosion target, which is either a SHARED or STATIC IMPORTED library, depending on the Rust crate type (cdylib vs staticlib).

The created library targets can be linked into other CMake targets by simply using target_link_libraries.

Corrosion will by default copy the produced Rust artifacts into ${CMAKE_CURRENT_BINARY_DIR}. The target location can be changed by setting the CMake OUTPUT_DIRECTORY target properties on the imported Rust targets. See the OUTPUT_DIRECTORY section for more details.

Many of the options available for corrosion_import_crate can also be individually set per target, see Per Target options for details.

Experimental: Install crate and headers with corrosion_install

The default CMake install commands do not work correctly with the targets exported from corrosion_import_crate(). Corrosion provides corrosion_install to automatically install relevant files:

** EXPERIMENTAL **: This function is currently still considered experimental and is not officially released yet. Feedback and Suggestions are welcome.

corrosion_install(TARGETS <target1> ... <targetN> [EXPORT <export-name>]
                  [[ARCHIVE|LIBRARY|RUNTIME|PUBLIC_HEADER]
                   [DESTINATION <dir>]
                   [PERMISSIONS <permissions...>]
                   [CONFIGURATIONS [Debug|Release|<other-configuration>]]
                  ] [...])

• TARGETS: Target or targets to install.
• EXPORT: Creates an export that can be installed with install(EXPORT). must be globally unique. Also creates a file at ${CMAKE_BINARY_DIR}/corrosion/Corrosion.cmake that must be included in the installed config file.
• ARCHIVE/LIBRARY/RUNTIME/PUBLIC_HEADER: Designates that the following settings only apply to that specific type of object.
• DESTINATION: The subdirectory within the CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX that a specific object should be placed. Defaults to values from GNUInstallDirs.
• PERMISSIONS: The permissions of files copied into the install prefix.

Any PUBLIC or INTERFACE file sets will be installed.

The example below shows how to import a rust library and make it available for install through CMake.

include(FetchContent)

FetchContent_Declare(
        Corrosion
        GIT_REPOSITORY https://github.com/corrosion-rs/corrosion.git
        GIT_TAG v0.5 # Optionally specify a commit hash, version tag or branch here
)
# Set any global configuration variables such as `Rust_TOOLCHAIN` before this line!
FetchContent_MakeAvailable(Corrosion)

# Import targets defined in a package or workspace manifest `Cargo.toml` file
corrosion_import_crate(MANIFEST_PATH rust-lib/Cargo.toml)

# Add a manually written header file which will be exported
# Requires CMake >=3.23
target_sources(rust-lib INTERFACE
        FILE_SET HEADERS
        BASE_DIRS include
        FILES
        include/rust-lib/rust-lib.h
)

# OR for CMake <= 3.23
target_include_directories(is_odd INTERFACE
        $<BUILD_INTERFACE:${CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR}/include>
        $<INSTALL_INTERFACE:include>
)
target_sources(is_odd
        INTERFACE
        $<BUILD_INTERFACE:${CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR}/include/rust-lib/rust-lib.h>
        $<INSTALL_INTERFACE:include/rust-lib/rust-lib.h>
)

# Rust libraries must be installed using `corrosion_install`.
corrosion_install(TARGETS rust-lib EXPORT RustLibTargets)

# Installs the main target
install(
        EXPORT RustLibTargets
        NAMESPACE RustLib::
        DESTINATION lib/cmake/RustLib
)

# Necessary for packaging helper commands
include(CMakePackageConfigHelpers)
# Create a file for checking version compatibility
# Optional
write_basic_package_version_file(
        "${CMAKE_CURRENT_BINARY_DIR}/RustLibConfigVersion.cmake"
        VERSION "${PROJECT_VERSION_MAJOR}.${PROJECT_VERSION_MINOR}"
        COMPATIBILITY AnyNewerVersion
)

# Configures the main config file that cmake loads
configure_package_config_file(${CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR}/Config.cmake.in
        "${CMAKE_CURRENT_BINARY_DIR}/RustLibConfig.cmake"
        INSTALL_DESTINATION lib/cmake/RustLib
        NO_SET_AND_CHECK_MACRO
        NO_CHECK_REQUIRED_COMPONENTS_MACRO
)
# Config.cmake.in contains
# @PACKAGE_INIT@
# 
# include(${CMAKE_CURRENT_LIST_DIR}/RustLibTargetsCorrosion.cmake)
# include(${CMAKE_CURRENT_LIST_DIR}/RustLibTargets.cmake)

# Install all generated files
install(FILES
        ${CMAKE_CURRENT_BINARY_DIR}/RustLibConfigVersion.cmake
        ${CMAKE_CURRENT_BINARY_DIR}/RustLibConfig.cmake
        ${CMAKE_CURRENT_BINARY_DIR}/corrosion/RustLibTargetsCorrosion.cmake
        DESTINATION lib/cmake/RustLib
)

Per Target options

Some configuration options can be specified individually for each target. You can set them via the corrosion_set_xxx() functions specified below:

• corrosion_set_env_vars(<target_name> <key1=value1> [... <keyN=valueN>]): Define environment variables that should be set during the invocation of cargo build for the specified target. Please note that the environment variable will only be set for direct builds of the target via cmake, and not for any build where cargo built the crate in question as a dependency for another target. The environment variables may contain generator expressions.
• corrosion_add_target_rustflags(<target_name> <rustflag> [... <rustflagN>]): When building the target, the RUSTFLAGS environment variable will contain the flags added via this function. Please note that any dependencies (built by cargo) will also see these flags. See also: corrosion_add_target_local_rustflags.
• corrosion_add_target_local_rustflags(target_name rustc_flag [more_flags ...]): Support setting rustflags for only the main target (crate) and none of its dependencies. This is useful in cases where you only need rustflags on the main-crate, but need to set different flags for different targets. Without "local" Rustflags this would require rebuilds of the dependencies when switching targets.
• corrosion_set_hostbuild(<target_name>): The target should be compiled for the Host target and ignore any cross-compile configuration.
• corrosion_set_features(<target_name> [ALL_FEATURES <Bool>] [NO_DEFAULT_FEATURES] [FEATURES <feature1> ... ]): For a given target, enable specific features via FEATURES, toggle ALL_FEATURES on or off or disable all features via NO_DEFAULT_FEATURES. For more information on features, please see also the cargo reference.
• corrosion_set_cargo_flags(<target_name> <flag1> ...]): For a given target, add options and flags at the end of cargo build invocation. This will be appended after any arguments passed through the FLAGS during the crate import.
• corrosion_set_linker(target_name linker): Use linker to link the target. Please note that this only has an effect for targets where the final linker invocation is done by cargo, i.e. targets where foreign code is linked into rust code and not the other way around. Please also note that if you are cross-compiling and specify a linker such as clang, you are responsible for also adding a rustflag which adds the necessary --target= argument for the linker.

Global Corrosion Options

Selecting the Rust toolchain and target triple

The following variables are evaluated automatically in most cases. In typical cases you shouldn't need to alter any of these. If you do want to specify them manually, make sure to set them before find_package(Corrosion REQUIRED).

• Rust_TOOLCHAIN:STRING - Specify a named rustup toolchain to use. Changes to this variable resets all other options. Default: If the first-found rustc is a rustup proxy, then the default rustup toolchain (see rustup show) is used. Otherwise, the variable is unset by default.
• Rust_ROOT:STRING - CMake provided. Path to a Rust toolchain to use. This is an alternative if you want to select a specific Rust toolchain, but it's not managed by rustup. Default: Nothing
• Rust_COMPILER:STRING - Path to rustc, which should be used for compiling or for toolchain detection (if it is a rustup proxy). Default: The rustc in the first-found toolchain, either from rustup, or from a toolchain available in the user's PATH.
• Rust_RESOLVE_RUSTUP_TOOLCHAINS:BOOL - If the found rustc is a rustup proxy, resolve a concrete path to a specific toolchain managed by rustup, according to the rustup toolchain selection rules and other options detailed here. If this option is turned off, the found rustc will be used as-is to compile, even if it is a rustup proxy, which might increase compilation time. Default: ON if the found rustc is a rustup proxy or a rustup managed toolchain was requested, OFF otherwise. Forced OFF if rustup was not found.
• Rust_CARGO:STRING - Path to cargo. Default: the cargo installed next to ${Rust_COMPILER}.
• Rust_CARGO_TARGET:STRING - The default target triple to build for. Alter for cross-compiling. Default: On Visual Studio Generator, the matching triple for CMAKE_VS_PLATFORM_NAME. Otherwise, the default target triple reported by ${Rust_COMPILER} --version --verbose.

Enable Convenience Options

The following options are off by default, but may increase convenience:

• Rust_RUSTUP_INSTALL_MISSING_TARGET:BOOL: Automatically install a missing target via rustup instead of failing.

Developer/Maintainer Options

These options are not used in the course of normal Corrosion usage, but are used to configure how Corrosion is built and installed. Only applies to Corrosion builds and subdirectory uses.

• CORROSION_BUILD_TESTS:BOOL - Build the Corrosion tests. Default: Off if Corrosion is a subdirectory, ON if it is the top-level project

Information provided by Corrosion

For your convenience, Corrosion sets a number of variables which contain information about the version of the rust toolchain. You can use the CMake version comparison operators (e.g. VERSION_GREATER_EQUAL) on the main variable (e.g. if(Rust_VERSION VERSION_GREATER_EQUAL "1.57.0")), or you can inspect the major, minor and patch versions individually.

• Rust_VERSION<_MAJOR|_MINOR|_PATCH> - The version of rustc.
• Rust_CARGO_VERSION<_MAJOR|_MINOR|_PATCH> - The cargo version.
• Rust_LLVM_VERSION<_MAJOR|_MINOR|_PATCH> - The LLVM version used by rustc.
• Rust_IS_NIGHTLY - 1 if a nightly toolchain is used, otherwise 0. Useful for selecting an unstable feature for a crate, that is only available on nightly toolchains.
• Cache variables containing information based on the target triple for the selected target as well as the default host target:
  • Rust_CARGO_TARGET_ARCH, Rust_CARGO_HOST_ARCH: e.g. x86_64 or aarch64
  • Rust_CARGO_TARGET_VENDOR, Rust_CARGO_HOST_VENDOR: e.g. apple, pc, unknown etc.
  • Rust_CARGO_TARGET_OS, Rust_CARGO_HOST_OS: e.g. darwin, linux, windows, none
  • Rust_CARGO_TARGET_ENV, Rust_CARGO_HOST_ENV: e.g. gnu, musl

Selecting a custom cargo profile

Rust 1.57 stabilized the support for custom profiles. If you are using a sufficiently new rust toolchain, you may select a custom profile by adding the optional argument PROFILE <profile_name> to corrosion_import_crate(). If you do not specify a profile, or you use an older toolchain, corrosion will select the standard dev profile if the CMake config is either Debug or unspecified. In all other cases the release profile is chosen for cargo.

Importing C-Style Libraries Written in Rust

Corrosion makes it completely trivial to import a crate into an existing CMake project. Consider a project called rust2cpp with the following file structure:

rust2cpp/
    rust/
        src/
            lib.rs
        Cargo.lock
        Cargo.toml
    CMakeLists.txt
    main.cpp

This project defines a simple Rust lib crate, like so, in rust2cpp/rust/Cargo.toml:

[package]
name = "rust-lib"
version = "0.1.0"
authors = ["Andrew Gaspar <andrew.gaspar@outlook.com>"]
license = "MIT"
edition = "2018"

[dependencies]

[lib]
crate-type=["staticlib"]

In addition to "staticlib", you can also use "cdylib". In fact, you can define both with a single crate and switch between which is used using the standard BUILD_SHARED_LIBS variable.

This crate defines a simple crate called rust-lib. Importing this crate into your CMakeLists.txt is trivial:

# Note: you must have already included Corrosion for `corrosion_import_crate` to be available. See # the `Installation` section above.

corrosion_import_crate(MANIFEST_PATH rust/Cargo.toml)

Now that you've imported the crate into CMake, all of the executables, static libraries, and dynamic libraries defined in the Rust can be directly referenced. So, merely define your C++ executable as normal in CMake and add your crate's library using target_link_libraries:

add_executable(cpp-exe main.cpp)
target_link_libraries(cpp-exe PUBLIC rust-lib)

That's it! You're now linking your Rust library to your C++ library.

Generate Bindings to Rust Library Automatically

Currently, you must manually declare bindings in your C or C++ program to the exported routines and types in your Rust project. You can see boths sides of this in the Rust code and in the C++ code.

Integration with cbindgen is planned for the future.

Importing Libraries Written in C and C++ Into Rust

The rust targets can be imported with corrosion_import_crate() into CMake. For targets where the linker should be invoked by Rust corrosion provides corrosion_link_libraries() to link your C/C++ libraries with the Rust target. For additional linker flags you may use corrosion_add_target_local_rustflags() and pass linker arguments via the -Clink-args flag to rustc. These flags will only be passed to the final rustc invocation and not affect any rust dependencies.

C bindings can be generated via bindgen. Corrosion does not offer any direct integration yet, but you can either generate the bindings in the build-script of your crate, or generate the bindings as a CMake build step (e.g. a custom target) and add a dependency from cargo-prebuild_<rust_target> to your custom target for generating the bindings.

Example:

# Import your Rust targets
corrosion_import_crate(MANIFEST_PATH rust/Cargo.toml)
# Link C/C++ libraries with your Rust target
corrosion_link_libraries(target_name c_library)
# Optionally explicitly define which linker to use.
corrosion_set_linker(target_name your_custom_linker)
# Optionally set linker arguments
corrosion_add_target_local_rustflags(target_name "-Clink-args=<linker arguments>")
# Optionally tell CMake that the rust crate depends on another target (e.g. a code generator)
add_dependencies(cargo-prebuild_<target_name> custom_bindings_target)

Cross Compiling

Corrosion attempts to support cross-compiling as generally as possible, though not all configurations are tested. Cross-compiling is explicitly supported in the following scenarios.

In all cases, you will need to install the standard library for the Rust target triple. When using Rustup, you can use it to install the target standard library:

rustup target add <target-rust-triple>

If the target triple is automatically derived, Corrosion will print the target during configuration. For example:

-- Rust Target: aarch64-linux-android

Windows-to-Windows

Corrosion supports cross-compiling between arbitrary Windows architectures using the Visual Studio Generator. For example, to cross-compile for ARM64 from any platform, simply set the -A architecture flag:

cmake -S. -Bbuild-arm64 -A ARM64
cmake --build build-arm64

Please note that for projects containing a build-script at least Rust 1.54 is required due to a bug in previous cargo versions, which causes the build-script to incorrectly be built for the target platform.

Linux-to-Linux

In order to cross-compile on Linux, you will need to install a cross-compiler. For example, on Ubuntu, to cross compile for 64-bit Little-Endian PowerPC Little-Endian, install g++-powerpc64le-linux-gnu from apt-get:

sudo apt install g++-powerpc64le-linux-gnu

Currently, Corrosion does not automatically determine the target triple while cross-compiling on Linux, so you'll need to specify a matching Rust_CARGO_TARGET.

cmake -S. -Bbuild-ppc64le -DRust_CARGO_TARGET=powerpc64le-unknown-linux-gnu -DCMAKE_CXX_COMPILER=powerpc64le-linux-gnu-g++
cmake --build build-ppc64le

Android

Cross-compiling for Android is supported on all platforms with the Makefile and Ninja generators, and the Rust target triple will automatically be selected. The CMake cross-compiling instructions for Android apply here. For example, to build for ARM64:

cmake -S. -Bbuild-android-arm64 -GNinja -DCMAKE_SYSTEM_NAME=Android \
      -DCMAKE_ANDROID_NDK=/path/to/android-ndk-rxxd -DCMAKE_ANDROID_ARCH_ABI=arm64-v8a

Important note: The Android SDK ships with CMake 3.10 at newest, which Android Studio will prefer over any CMake you've installed locally. CMake 3.10 is insufficient for using Corrosion, which requires a minimum of CMake 3.22. If you're using Android Studio to build your project, follow the instructions in the Android Studio documentation for using a specific version of CMake.

CMake OUTPUT_DIRECTORY target properties and IMPORTED_LOCATION

Corrosion respects the following OUTPUT_DIRECTORY target properties:

• ARCHIVE_OUTPUT_DIRECTORY
• LIBRARY_OUTPUT_DIRECTORY
• RUNTIME_OUTPUT_DIRECTORY
• PDB_OUTPUT_DIRECTORY

If the target property is set (e.g. by defining the CMAKE_XYZ_OUTPUT_DIRECTORY variable before calling corrosion_import_crate()), corrosion will copy the built rust artifacts to the location defined in the target property. Due to limitations in CMake these target properties are evaluated in a deferred manner, to support the user setting the target properties after the call to corrosion_import_crate(). This has the side effect that the IMPORTED_LOCATION property will be set late, and users should not use get_property to read IMPORTED_LOCATION at configure time. Instead, generator expressions should be used to get the location of the target artifact. If IMPORTED_LOCATION is needed at configure time users may use cmake_language(DEFER CALL ...) to defer evaluation to after the IMPORTED_LOCATION property is set.