Re: [libgpiod][PATCH 0/2] bindings: rust: feature gate unreleased features

[Bartosz Golaszewski <brgl@xxxxxxxx>]

On Fri, Oct 6, 2023 at 9:24 AM Erik Schilling <erik.schilling@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> When releasing the 0.2.0 version of the libgpiod crate, I did not
> realize that there were C lib features that were not released yet.
> Helpfully, vhost-device's CI went up in flames and revealed this [1].
>
> This suggests a way to handle that and sketches how further updates can
> be handled.
>
> I acknowledge that this may be very strange to C developers...
> Traditionally, one would just use whatever your distro provided and the
> distro would make sure that dependencies update in lock-step.
>
> However, in Rust the default way to consume libraries is to pull them
> from crates.io. This is a balancing act for -sys crates which link to
> distro-provided libraries on the system. Since crates.io does not wait
> for distros to update their libraries, crates will need to support a
> wider range of system libraries.
>
> This sets up / sketches the infrastructure for that.
>
> Only the first commit is intended to be merged. The second one just
> sketches how a release will look like once it happens.
>
> [1] https://buildkite.com/rust-vmm/vhost-device-ci/builds/1746#018b0110-b9d3-468a-973c-c3bbc27cd479
>
> To: Bartosz Golaszewski <brgl@xxxxxxxx>
> To: Linux-GPIO <linux-gpio@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Cc: Viresh Kumar <viresh.kumar@xxxxxxxxxx>
> Cc: Manos Pitsidianakis <manos.pitsidianakis@xxxxxxxxxx>
> Cc: Kent Gibson <warthog618@xxxxxxxxx>
>
> Signed-off-by: Erik Schilling <erik.schilling@xxxxxxxxxx>
> ---
> Erik Schilling (2):
>       bindings: rust: feature gate unreleased features
>       DONOTMERGE: bindings: rust: simulate v2.1 release
>
>  bindings/rust/libgpiod-sys/Cargo.toml        |  9 +++++++--
>  bindings/rust/libgpiod/Cargo.toml            |  4 ++++
>  bindings/rust/libgpiod/Makefile.am           |  2 +-
>  bindings/rust/libgpiod/README.md             | 14 ++++++++++++++
>  bindings/rust/libgpiod/src/line_request.rs   |  2 ++
>  bindings/rust/libgpiod/tests/line_request.rs |  1 +
>  6 files changed, 29 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-)
> ---
> base-commit: e7b02c2259d97c77107c77b68e3bc1664e6703c1
> change-id: 20231006-b4-bindings-old-version-fix-789973703b77
>
> Best regards,
> --
> Erik Schilling <erik.schilling@xxxxxxxxxx>
>

I'm currently discussing a similar problem with a developer who
offered to help make Python bindings released on PyPi more
user-friendly. His suggestion for python bindings is what many PyPi
packages that provide bindings to C libraries do: just compile the
library statically and make it part of the C extension module bundled
together with python code.

Given that rust programs are statically linked, maybe this is a
solution we could use?

Bart