view rust/README.rst @ 49000:dd6b67d5c256 stable

rust: fix unsound `OwningDirstateMap`

As per the previous patch, `OwningDirstateMap` is unsound. Self-referential
structs are difficult to implement correctly in Rust since the compiler is
free to move structs around as much as it wants to. They are also very rarely
needed in practice, so the state-of-the-art on how they should be done within
the Rust rules is still a bit new.

The crate `ouroboros` is an attempt at providing a safe way (in the Rust sense)
of declaring self-referential structs. It is getting a lot attention and was
improved very quickly when soundness issues were found in the past: rather than
relying on our own (limited) review circle, we might as well use the de-facto
common crate to fix this problem. This will give us a much better chance of
finding issues should any new ones be discovered as well as the benefit of
fewer `unsafe` APIs of our own.

I was starting to think about how I would present a safe API to the old struct
but soon realized that the callback-based approach was already done in
`ouroboros`, along with a lot more care towards refusing incorrect structs.

In short: we don't return a mutable reference to the `DirstateMap` anymore, we
expect users of its API to pass a `FnOnce` that takes the map as an argument.
This allows our `OwningDirstateMap` to control the input and output lifetimes
of the code that modifies it to prevent such issues.

Changing to `ouroboros` meant changing every API with it, but it is relatively
low churn in the end. It correctly identified the example buggy modification of
`copy_map_insert` outlined in the previous patch as violating the borrow rules.

Differential Revision: https://phab.mercurial-scm.org/D12429

===================
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 four independent Rust projects:
- chg. An implementation of chg, in Rust instead of C.
- hgcli. A project that provides 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.
- rhg: a pure Rust implementation of Mercurial, with a fallback mechanism for
  unsupported invocations. It reuses the logic `hg-core` but completely forgoes
  interaction with Python. See `rust/rhg/README.md` for more details.

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 ``1.48.0``, because it's what Debian
stable has. You can use ``rustup override set 1.48.0`` 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.