cargo-liner 0.1.0

Cargo subcommand to install and update binary packages listed in configuration.
cargo-liner-0.1.0 is not a library.

car·go·lin·er, noun:

  1. a cargo ship that sails regularly between designated ports according to a published schedule.

Summary

cargo install works very well to download, compile and install a binary package. However, it does not offer means to update currently installed programs without having to specify them manually one by one on the CLI. That becomes quickly bothersome when having to maintain several packages up-to-date, especially if it needs to be done on multiple workstations.

Some projects, such as cargo-update or cargo-updater, exist in order to solve this issue. Their strategy is to exploit the $CARGO_HOME/.crates.toml and $CARGO_HOME/.crates2.json files that Cargo generates and maintains in order to track which packages are installed, their exact version, where they were downloaded from and which programs they have installed. This strategy is quite effective, so if you are looking for exactly that, then check them out.

However, some problems are still not solved like this: when configuring a new workstation, there is still the need to specify each package manually at least once; when adding a new package on one already-configured workstation, there is still the need to install it manually on all others. These tools lack sharing and synchronisation.

The current project therefore inspires itself from tools such as zplug for Zsh and vim-plug for Vim by taking orders from a central configuration file. The tool then simply runs cargo install for all packages listed in that file. That enables one to install and maintain all packages up-to-date, but also to keep all of one's workstations synchronised by sharing the file between them in some way, using Git for example.

Installation

  • Run: cargo install cargo-liner.

  • Create the configuration file to be located at: $CARGO_HOME/liner.toml.

    • See the reference documentation about Cargo Home if you have trouble locating the directory.

  • Populate the file with packages you wish to be installed, for example :

    [packages]
cargo-expand = "*"
cargo-tarpaulin = "~0.22"
nu = "0.71.0"

Usage

CLI

As of now, the CLI is virtually non-existent:

❯ cargo help liner
Usage: cargo liner

Options:
  -h, --help     Print help information
  -V, --version  Print version information

Simply run cargo liner in order to:

  • Read packages from the configuration file.
  • Run cargo install for each of them.

Configuration

The file must be located at $CARGO_HOME/liner.toml and contain a properly-formed TOML document respecting the following format:

[packages]
package-name-1 = "version-req-1"
package-name-2 = "version-req-2"
#...

where:

  • package-name-* must be a valid package name, i.e. match [a-zA-Z][a-zA-Z0-9_-]* or something like that.
  • version-req-* must be a valid SemVer requirement, Cargo style. In particular, the catch-all wildcard * can be used to require the latest version available.