rust/README.rst
author Matt Harbison <matt_harbison@yahoo.com>
Thu, 18 Mar 2021 23:41:00 -0400
changeset 46807 2c0e35f6957a
parent 46140 ec14c37958ec
child 48296 4ee6b8b40787
permissions -rw-r--r--
typing: mark the argument to mercurial.i18n.gettext() non-Optional Few if any of the callers are handling a `None` return, which is making pytype complain. I tried adding @overload definitions to indicate the bytes -> bytes and None -> None relationship, but pytype doesn't seem to apply that to `_()` through the function assignment. What did work was to change `_()` into its own function that called `gettext()`, but that has an extra function call overhead. Even putting that function into an `if pycompat.TYPE_CHECKING` block and leaving the existing assignments in the `else` block caused pytype to lose track of the @overloads. At that point, I simply gave up. PyCharm doesn't like that it can return None, given the new type hints, but pytype doesn't complain about this nor does it see any callers passing None. The most important thing here is to catch str being passed anyway. Differential Revision: https://phab.mercurial-scm.org/D10235

===================
Mercurial Rust Code
===================

This directory contains various Rust code for the Mercurial project.
Rust is not required to use (or build) Mercurial, but using it
improves performance in some areas.

There are currently three independent rust projects:
- chg. An implementation of chg, in rust instead of C.
- hgcli. A project that provide a (mostly) self-contained "hg" binary,
  for ease of deployment and a bit of speed, using PyOxidizer. See
  hgcli/README.md.
- hg-core (and hg-cpython): implementation of some
  functionality of mercurial in rust, e.g. ancestry computations in
  revision graphs, status or pull discovery. The top-level ``Cargo.toml`` file
  defines a workspace containing these crates.

Using Rust code
===============

Local use (you need to clean previous build artifacts if you have
built without rust previously)::

  $ make PURE=--rust local # to use ./hg
  $ ./tests/run-tests.py --rust # to run all tests
  $ ./hg debuginstall | grep -i rust # to validate rust is in use
  checking Rust extensions (installed)
  checking module policy (rust+c-allow)

If the environment variable ``HGWITHRUSTEXT=cpython`` is set, the Rust
extension will be used by default unless ``--no-rust``.

One day we may use this environment variable to switch to new experimental
binding crates like a hypothetical ``HGWITHRUSTEXT=hpy``.

Special features
================

You might want to check the `features` section in ``hg-cpython/Cargo.toml``.
It may contain features that might be interesting to try out.

To use features from the Makefile, use the `HG_RUST_FEATURES` environment
variable: for instance `HG_RUST_FEATURES="some-feature other-feature"`

Profiling
=========

Setting the environment variable ``RUST_LOG=trace`` will make hg print
a few high level rust-related performance numbers. It can also
indicate why the rust code cannot be used (say, using lookarounds in
hgignore).

Creating a ``.cargo/config`` file with the following content enables
debug information in optimized builds. This make profiles more informative
with source file name and line number for Rust stack frames and
(in some cases) stack frames for Rust functions that have been inlined.

  [profile.release]
  debug = true

``py-spy`` (https://github.com/benfred/py-spy) can be used to
construct a single profile with rust functions and python functions
(as opposed to ``hg --profile``, which attributes time spent in rust
to some unlucky python code running shortly after the rust code, and
as opposed to tools for native code like ``perf``, which attribute
time to the python interpreter instead of python functions).

Example usage:

  $ make PURE=--rust local # Don't forget to recompile after a code change
  $ py-spy record --native --output /tmp/profile.svg -- ./hg ...

Developing Rust
===============

The current version of Rust in use is ``1.41.1``, because it's what Debian
stable has. You can use ``rustup override set 1.41.1`` at the root of the repo
to make it easier on you.

Go to the ``hg-cpython`` folder::

  $ cd rust/hg-cpython

Or, only the ``hg-core`` folder. Be careful not to break compatibility::

  $ cd rust/hg-core

Simply run::

   $ cargo build --release

It is possible to build without ``--release``, but it is not
recommended if performance is of any interest: there can be an order
of magnitude of degradation when removing ``--release``.

For faster builds, you may want to skip code generation::

  $ cargo check

For even faster typing::

  $ cargo c

You can run only the rust-specific tests (as opposed to tests of
mercurial as a whole) with::

  $ cargo test --all

Formatting the code
-------------------

We use ``rustfmt`` to keep the code formatted at all times. For now, we are
using the nightly version because it has been stable enough and provides
comment folding.

To format the entire Rust workspace::

  $ cargo +nightly fmt

This requires you to have the nightly toolchain installed.