mohitmishra786/low-level-dev-skills

rust-ffi

Rust FFI skill for C interoperability.

Voir la source

Mode d’emploi

  1. Copiez la commande et examinez le paquet avant de l’installer dans votre environnement agent.
  2. Consultez le document original pour les outils, identifiants et environnements requis.
  3. Décrivez les entrées et le livrable souhaité ; comparez la sortie aux sources.
npx skills add https://github.com/mohitmishra786/low-level-dev-skills --skill rust-ffi

Avant de commencer

  • L’installation n’inclut ni abonnement au modèle, ni quota API, ni accès aux fichiers.
  • Étoiles et installations reflètent l’activité, pas un test indépendant de qualité ou de sécurité.
Document Skill original

Rendu depuis le dépôt source en conservant titres, exemples, code, tableaux, liens et images.

Rust FFI

Purpose

Guide agents through Rust's Foreign Function Interface: calling C from Rust with bindgen, exporting Rust to C with cbindgen, writing safe wrappers, linking libraries via build.rs, and structuring sys crates.

Triggers

  • "How do I call a C library from Rust?"
  • "How do I use bindgen to generate Rust bindings?"
  • "How do I export Rust functions to be called from C?"
  • "How do I write a safe wrapper around an unsafe C API?"
  • "How do I link a system library in Rust?"
  • "What is a sys crate and how do I structure one?"

Workflow

1. Calling C without bindgen (manual declarations)

rust
// Declare external C functions manually
use std::ffi::{c_int, c_char, c_void, CStr, CString};

extern "C" {
    fn strlen(s: *const c_char) -> usize;
    fn malloc(size: usize) -> *mut c_void;
    fn free(ptr: *mut c_void);
    fn my_lib_init(config: *const c_char) -> c_int;
    fn my_lib_process(handle: *mut c_void, data: *const u8, len: usize) -> c_int;
    fn my_lib_cleanup(handle: *mut c_void);
}

// Call unsafe C function safely
fn init(config: &str) -> Result<*mut c_void, Error> {
    let c_config = CString::new(config)?;
    let result = unsafe { my_lib_init(c_config.as_ptr()) };
    if result != 0 {
        return Err(Error::InitFailed(result));
    }
    // return handle...
    todo!()
}

2. bindgen for automatic binding generation

toml
# Cargo.toml
[build-dependencies]
bindgen = "0.70"
rust
// build.rs
use std::path::PathBuf;

fn main() {
    println!("cargo:rerun-if-changed=wrapper.h");
    println!("cargo:rustc-link-lib=mylib");
    println!("cargo:rustc-link-search=/usr/local/lib");

    let bindings = bindgen::Builder::default()
        .header("wrapper.h")
        .clang_arg("-I/usr/local/include")
        .clang_arg("-DMYLIB_VERSION=2")
        // Only generate bindings for this library (not system headers)
        .allowlist_function("mylib_.*")
        .allowlist_type("MyLib.*")
        .allowlist_var("MYLIB_.*")
        // Derive common traits on structs
        .derive_debug(true)
        .derive_default(true)
        // Block problematic types
        .blocklist_type("__va_list_tag")
        .generate()
        .expect("Unable to generate bindings");

    let out_path = PathBuf::from(std::env::var("OUT_DIR").unwrap());
    bindings
        .write_to_file(out_path.join("bindings.rs"))
        .expect("Couldn't write bindings!");
}
rust
// src/lib.rs — include generated bindings
#![allow(non_upper_case_globals)]
#![allow(non_camel_case_types)]
#![allow(non_snake_case)]

include!(concat!(env!("OUT_DIR"), "/bindings.rs"));

3. sys crate pattern

Structure:

mylib-sys/
├── Cargo.toml
├── build.rs        # links the library
├── wrapper.h       # C headers to translate
└── src/
    └── lib.rs      # includes generated bindings

mylib/             # safe wrapper
├── Cargo.toml
└── src/
    └── lib.rs
toml
# mylib-sys/Cargo.toml
[package]
name = "mylib-sys"
version = "0.1.0"
links = "mylib"          # tells Cargo this crate links libmylib

[build-dependencies]
bindgen = "0.70"
pkg-config = "0.3"       # for system library detection
rust
// mylib-sys/build.rs
fn main() {
    // Try pkg-config first
    if let Ok(lib) = pkg_config::probe_library("mylib") {
        for path in lib.include_paths {
            println!("cargo:include={}", path.display());
        }
        return;
    }

    // Fallback: compile from vendored source
    cc::Build::new()
        .file("vendor/mylib/src/mylib.c")
        .include("vendor/mylib/include")
        .compile("mylib");

    println!("cargo:rerun-if-changed=vendor/mylib/src/mylib.c");
}

4. Writing safe wrappers

rust
// mylib/src/lib.rs
use mylib_sys as ffi;
use std::ffi::{CStr, CString};

pub struct MyLib {
    handle: *mut ffi::mylib_t,
}

// Safety: handle is not shared across threads
unsafe impl Send for MyLib {}
unsafe impl Sync for MyLib {}

impl MyLib {
    pub fn new(config: &str) -> Result<Self, Error> {
        let c_config = CString::new(config).map_err(|_| Error::InvalidConfig)?;
        let handle = unsafe { ffi::mylib_create(c_config.as_ptr()) };
        if handle.is_null() {
            return Err(Error::InitFailed);
        }
        Ok(Self { handle })
    }

    pub fn process(&mut self, data: &[u8]) -> Result<usize, Error> {
        let result = unsafe {
            ffi::mylib_process(self.handle, data.as_ptr(), data.len())
        };
        if result < 0 {
            return Err(Error::ProcessFailed(result));
        }
        Ok(result as usize)
    }
}

impl Drop for MyLib {
    fn drop(&mut self) {
        unsafe { ffi::mylib_destroy(self.handle) };
    }
}

5. Exporting Rust to C with cbindgen

toml
# Cargo.toml
[build-dependencies]
cbindgen = "0.27"
rust
// src/lib.rs — exported Rust API
#[no_mangle]
pub extern "C" fn mylib_create(config: *const std::ffi::c_char) -> *mut MyLib {
    // ...
    Box::into_raw(Box::new(instance))
}

#[no_mangle]
pub extern "C" fn mylib_destroy(ptr: *mut MyLib) {
    if !ptr.is_null() {
        unsafe { drop(Box::from_raw(ptr)) };
    }
}

#[no_mangle]
pub extern "C" fn mylib_process(
    ptr: *mut MyLib,
    data: *const u8,
    len: usize,
) -> std::ffi::c_int {
    let lib = unsafe { &mut *ptr };
    match lib.process(unsafe { std::slice::from_raw_parts(data, len) }) {
        Ok(n) => n as std::ffi::c_int,
        Err(_) => -1,
    }
}
rust
// build.rs
fn main() {
    let crate_dir = std::env::var("CARGO_MANIFEST_DIR").unwrap();
    cbindgen::Builder::new()
        .with_crate(crate_dir)
        .with_language(cbindgen::Language::C)
        .generate()
        .expect("Unable to generate C bindings")
        .write_to_file("include/mylib.h");
}

6. Linking libraries in build.rs

rust
// build.rs — common patterns
fn main() {
    // Static library
    println!("cargo:rustc-link-lib=static=mylib");
    println!("cargo:rustc-link-search=native=/path/to/lib");

    // Dynamic library
    println!("cargo:rustc-link-lib=dylib=mylib");

    // Framework (macOS)
    println!("cargo:rustc-link-lib=framework=CoreFoundation");

    // Build C source with cc crate
    cc::Build::new()
        .file("src/helper.c")
        .flag("-std=c11")
        .compile("helper");
}

For bindgen and cbindgen configuration details, see references/bindgen-cbindgen.md.

Related skills

  • Use skills/rust/rustc-basics for RUSTFLAGS affecting FFI builds
  • Use skills/rust/cargo-workflows for build.rs integration and sys crate layout
  • Use skills/zig/zig-cinterop for Zig's equivalent C interop approach
  • Use skills/binaries/dynamic-linking for dynamic library linking details

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