cargo-liner 0.4.3

Cargo subcommand to install and update binary packages listed in configuration.
cargo-liner-0.4.3 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 Liner is a tool to help one who has packages currently installed or to be installed through the official cargo install command to install and maintain them up-to-date by editing a small and stable configuration file located at $CARGO_HOME/liner.toml.

Goals:

  • Simple and intuitive API.
  • Stable configuration file: avoid editing it automatically.
  • Actually use cargo install, cargo search or cargo config get and not much else.

Non-goals:

  • Super-duper stability guarantees.
  • Re-implementing half of Cargo for small functionalities.
  • Being """pretty""" above all else.
  • Handling the synchronization of the configuration file between various hosts.

Rationale

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 synchronization.

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 search for all packages listed in that file in order to retrieve their latest versions available and then cargo install for those that do indeed need an install or update using the results from the search. That enables one to install and maintain all packages up-to-date, but also to keep all of one's workstations synchronized 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.

  • If you are using a different Cargo installation root than $CARGO_HOME, please make sure it is properly configured in the $CARGO_INSTALL_ROOT environment variable or the install.root key of the $CARGO_HOME/config.toml file so that the current tool may be able to detect that on itself. See the cargo install documentation for more details about this.

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

    [packages]
cargo-expand = "*"
cargo-tarpaulin = "~0.22"
nu = "=0.71.0"
ripgrep = { version = "13.0.0", all-features = true }
sqlx-cli = {
    version = "0.6.2",
    default-features = false,
    features = ["native-tls", "postgres"],
}

    or use cargo liner import to do it automatically for you, see below for more detailed explanations.

cargo-install

Usage

CLI

A few commands are available:

❯ cargo help liner
Cargo subcommand to install and update binary packages listed in configuration.

Usage: cargo liner [OPTIONS] [COMMAND]

Commands:
  ship
          The default command if omitted: install and update configured packages
  import
          Import the `$CARGO_HOME/.crates.toml` Cargo-edited save file as a new
          Liner configuration file
  help
          Print this message or the help of the given subcommand(s)

Options:
  -v, --verbose...
          Be more verbose. Use multiple times to be more and more so each time.

          When omitted, INFO and above messages of only this crate are logged.
          When used once, DEBUG and above messages of only this crate are logged.
          When used twice, DEBUG and above messages of all crates are logged.
          When used three times or more, TRACE and above messages of all crates
          are logged.

  -q, --quiet...
          Be quieter. Use multiple times to be more and more so each time.

          When omitted, INFO and above messages of only this crate are logged.
          When used once, WARN and above messages of only this crate are logged.
          When used twice, ERROR messages of all crates are logged.
          When used three times or more, no message will be logged.

  -h, --help
          Print help information (use `-h` for a summary)

  -V, --version
          Print version information

Default command

When the subcommand is omitted, it will use the ship subcommand with default options. See its specific documentation for more details.

Simply run cargo liner in order to:

  • Read packages from the configuration file.
  • Detect currently-installed packages from Cargo's installation.
  • Check the latest available version for each of them.
  • Install or update the ones that need to, respecting the version requirements.
  • Self-update.

Example output if bat and cargo-expand are required:

❯ cargo liner
 INFO  cargo_liner::cargo > Fetching latest package versions...
 INFO  cargo_liner        > Results:
 INFO  cargo_liner        >     bat           ✔
 INFO  cargo_liner        >     cargo-expand  1.0.53 -> 1.0.54
 INFO  cargo_liner        >     cargo-liner   ✔
 INFO  cargo_liner::cargo > Updating `cargo-expand`...
    Updating crates.io index
  Downloaded cargo-expand v1.0.54
  Downloaded 1 crate (26.4 KB) in 0.44s
  Installing cargo-expand v1.0.54
    Updating crates.io index
  Downloaded anstyle-parse v0.2.1
  [...]
  Downloaded clap_builder v4.3.5
  Downloaded 5 crates (311.7 KB) in 0.45s
   Compiling proc-macro2 v1.0.60
   [...]
   Compiling cargo-expand v1.0.54
   [...]
   Compiling cargo-subcommand-metadata v0.1.0
    Finished release [optimized] target(s) in 52.97s
   Replacing /home/pauldance/.cargo/bin/cargo-expand
    Replaced package `cargo-expand v1.0.53` with `cargo-expand v1.0.54` (executable `cargo-expand`)
 INFO  cargo_liner        > Done.

ship subcommand

The main command: do the installing and updating of packages.

❯ cargo liner help ship
The default command if omitted: install and update configured packages.

Self-updating is enabled by default.

Usage: cargo liner ship [OPTIONS]

Options:
  -n, --no-self
          Disable self-updating.

          Cannot be used in conjunction with `--only-self`. Default: `false`,
          i.e. self-update.

  -s, --only-self
          Only self-update and do not install or update any other package.

          Cannot be used in conjunction with `--no-self`. Default: `false`,
          i.e. install or update other packages as well.

  -c, --skip-check
          Skip the summary version check and directly call `cargo install` on
          each configured package.

          The version check is relatively quick and enables skipping calls to
          `cargo install` when no update is required, which saves quite a bit
          of time. However, if you wish, this option is still available in
          order not to run the check: doing so will probably take more time in
          the end most of the time, except if you have a very small amount of
          packages configured (e.g. one or two) or if all or almost all
          packages are not already installed.

          It can also be used as a workaround in case a certain operation fails
          in your particular environment, for example: reading from `.crates.toml`
          under the `$CARGO_HOME` or `$CARGO_INSTALL_ROOT` directory or making
          requests to the registry. These operations will thus be entirely skipped.


  -f, --force
          Force overwriting existing crates or binaries.

          Passes the option flag onto each call of `cargo install`. It will,
          for example, redownload, recompile and reinstall every configured
          package when used in conjunction with `--skip-check`.

  -v, --verbose...
          Be more verbose. Use multiple times to be more and more so each time.

          When omitted, INFO and above messages of only this crate are logged.
          When used once, DEBUG and above messages of only this crate are logged.
          When used twice, DEBUG and above messages of all crates are logged.
          When used three times or more, TRACE and above messages of all crates
          are logged.

  -q, --quiet...
          Be quieter. Use multiple times to be more and more so each time.

          When omitted, INFO and above messages of only this crate are logged.
          When used once, WARN and above messages of only this crate are logged.
          When used twice, ERROR messages of all crates are logged.
          When used three times or more, no message will be logged.

  -h, --help
          Print help information (use `-h` for a summary)

Simply run cargo liner ship in order to:

  • Read packages from the configuration file.
  • Read currently installed packages from the Cargo-managed .crates.toml file under the $CARGO_INSTALL_ROOT directory if cargo config get is able to retrieve its value from either the environment variable or the install.root configuration item in $CARGO_HOME/config.toml, or fall back to searching the file under the default $CARGO_HOME directory if the first attempt fails for any reason, the simple absence of the setting being one of them. See the cargo install documentation for more details about this. Whenever the first attempt fails, it is logged as a DEBUG message before attempting the default, so use -vv to investiguate if your configuration seems not to be taken into account.
  • Check the latest available version for each of them using cargo search.
  • Run cargo install for each that needs an install or update, respecting the version requirements.
  • Self-update only if --no-self is not given.

cargo-install

import subcommand

This command is meant to be used upon installing the tool and using it for the first time: it populates the configuration file with currently-installed packages.

❯ cargo liner help import
Import the `$CARGO_HOME/.crates.toml` Cargo-edited save file as a new Liner
configuration file.

Star versions are used by default. The version transformation options are
mutually exclusive.

Usage: cargo liner import [OPTIONS]

Options:
  -e, --exact
          Import package versions as "exact versions", i.e. prepended with an
          equal operator.

          Cannot be used in conjunction with either `--compatible` or `--patch`.
          Default: `false`, i.e. use a star requirement.

  -c, --compatible
          Import package versions as "compatible versions", i.e. prepended with
          a caret operator.

          Cannot be used in conjunction with either `--exact` or `--patch`.
          Default: `false`, i.e. use a star requirement.

  -p, --patch
          Import package versions as "patch versions", i.e. prepended with a
          tilde operator.

          Cannot be used in conjunction with either `--exact` or `--compatible`.
          Default: `false`, i.e. use a star requirement.

  -f, --force
          Overwrite the current configuration file if it already exists.

          Default: `false`, i.e. return an error in case the file already exists.

  -k, --keep-self
          Also import this `cargo-liner` package into the configuration, for
          example in order to specify a certain version requirement later on.

          Default: `false`, i.e. exclude the current package from the list of
          packages to install or update in the resulting configuration file.
          Note however that the `ship` command will still self-update by
          default.

  -v, --verbose...
          Be more verbose. Use multiple times to be more and more so each time.

          When omitted, INFO and above messages of only this crate are logged.
          When used once, DEBUG and above messages of only this crate are logged.
          When used twice, DEBUG and above messages of all crates are logged.
          When used three times or more, TRACE and above messages of all crates
          are logged.

  -q, --quiet...
          Be quieter. Use multiple times to be more and more so each time.

          When omitted, INFO and above messages of only this crate are logged.
          When used once, WARN and above messages of only this crate are logged.
          When used twice, ERROR messages of all crates are logged.
          When used three times or more, no message will be logged.

  -h, --help
          Print help information (use `-h` for a summary)

For example, if you had previously installed:

  • bat@0.22.1
  • cargo-make@0.36.3
  • cargo-outdated@0.11.1

Then running cargo liner import will result in the following configuration file, if it does not already exist:

[packages]
bat = "*"
cargo-make = "*"
cargo-outdated = "*"

The command will by default import them with star version requirements. The --exact, --compatible and --patch options are provided in order to customize how the currently-installed versions are imported into version requirements: --exact will prepend them with =, --compatible with ^, and --patch with ~.

For example, using the previous three packages already installed, running cargo liner import --patch would give:

[packages]
bat = "~0.22.1"
cargo-make = "~0.36.3"
cargo-outdated = "~0.11.1"

The file can of course be edited manually afterwards, as intended.

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"
package-name-3 = {
    version = "version-req-3",
    all-features = boolean,
    default-features = boolean,
    features = ["feature-1", "feature-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.
  • feature-* must be the name of a cargo feature defined by the crate being installed.
  • boolean is a toml boolean, either true or false.

Contributing

See the contributing guidelines. Please also take note of the code of conduct.

Copyright notice

Sergej Tucakov for the animation used as this project's logo.