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| <h1 id="about-this-guide"><a class="header" href="#about-this-guide">About this guide</a></h1> |
| <p>This guide is meant to help document how rustc – the Rust compiler – works, |
| as well as to help new contributors get involved in rustc development.</p> |
| <p>There are several parts to this guide:</p> |
| <ol> |
| <li><a href="./building/how-to-build-and-run.html">Building and debugging <code>rustc</code></a>: |
| Contains information that should be useful no matter how you are contributing, |
| about building, debugging, profiling, etc.</li> |
| <li><a href="./contributing.html">Contributing to Rust</a>: |
| Contains information that should be useful no matter how you are contributing, |
| about procedures for contribution, using git and Github, stabilizing features, etc.</li> |
| <li><a href="./building/bootstrapping/intro.html">Bootstrapping</a>: |
| Describes how the Rust compiler builds itself using previous versions, including |
| an introduction to the bootstrap process and debugging methods.</li> |
| <li><a href="./part-2-intro.html">High-level Compiler Architecture</a>: |
| Discusses the high-level architecture of the compiler and stages of the compile process.</li> |
| <li><a href="./part-3-intro.html">Source Code Representation</a>: |
| Describes the process of taking raw source code from the user |
| and transforming it into various forms that the compiler can work with easily.</li> |
| <li><a href="./cli.html">Supporting Infrastructure</a>: |
| Covers command-line argument conventions, compiler entry points like rustc_driver and |
| rustc_interface, and the design and implementation of errors and lints.</li> |
| <li><a href="./part-4-intro.html">Analysis</a>: |
| Discusses the analyses that the compiler uses to check various properties of the code |
| and inform later stages of the compile process (e.g., type checking).</li> |
| <li><a href="./part-5-intro.html">MIR to Binaries</a>: How linked executable machine code is generated.</li> |
| <li><a href="./appendix/background.html">Appendices</a> at the end with useful reference information. |
| There are a few of these with different information, including a glossary.</li> |
| </ol> |
| <h3 id="constant-change"><a class="header" href="#constant-change">Constant change</a></h3> |
| <p>Keep in mind that <code>rustc</code> is a real production-quality product, |
| being worked upon continuously by a sizeable set of contributors. |
| As such, it has its fair share of codebase churn and technical debt. |
| In addition, many of the ideas discussed throughout this guide are idealized designs |
| that are not fully realized yet. |
| All this makes keeping this guide completely up to date on everything very hard!</p> |
| <p>The guide itself is of course open source as well, |
| and the sources are hosted on <a href="https://github.com/rust-lang/rustc-dev-guide/">a GitHub repository</a>. |
| If you find any mistakes in the guide, please file an issue. |
| Even better, open a PR with a correction!</p> |
| <p>If you do contribute to the guide, |
| please see the corresponding <a href="contributing.html#contributing-to-rustc-dev-guide">subsection on writing documentation in this guide</a>.</p> |
| <blockquote> |
| <p>“‘All conditioned things are impermanent’ — |
| when one sees this with wisdom, one turns away from suffering.” |
| <em>The Dhammapada, verse 277</em></p> |
| </blockquote> |
| <h2 id="other-places-to-find-information"><a class="header" href="#other-places-to-find-information">Other places to find information</a></h2> |
| <p>You might also find the following sites useful:</p> |
| <ul> |
| <li>This guide contains information about how various parts of the |
| compiler work and how to contribute to the compiler.</li> |
| <li><a href="https://doc.rust-lang.org/nightly/nightly-rustc/rustc_middle">rustc API docs</a> -- rustdoc documentation for the compiler, devtools, and internal tools</li> |
| <li><a href="https://forge.rust-lang.org/">Forge</a> -- contains documentation about Rust infrastructure, team procedures, and more</li> |
| <li><a href="https://github.com/rust-lang/compiler-team/">compiler-team</a> -- the home-base for the Rust compiler team, with description |
| of the team procedures, active working groups, and the team calendar.</li> |
| <li><a href="https://std-dev-guide.rust-lang.org/">std-dev-guide</a> -- a similar guide for developing the standard library.</li> |
| <li><a href="https://rust-lang.zulipchat.com/#narrow/stream/131828-t-compiler">The t-compiler Zulip</a></li> |
| <li>The <a href="http://internals.rust-lang.org">Rust Internals forum</a>, a place to ask questions and |
| discuss Rust's internals</li> |
| <li>The <a href="https://doc.rust-lang.org/book/">Rust reference</a>, even though it doesn't specifically talk about |
| Rust's internals, is a great resource nonetheless</li> |
| <li>Although out of date, <a href="https://tomlee.co/2014/04/a-more-detailed-tour-of-the-rust-compiler/">Tom Lee's great blog article</a> is very helpful</li> |
| <li>The <a href="tests/intro.html">Rust Compiler Testing Docs</a></li> |
| <li>For <a href="https://github.com/bors">@bors</a>, <a href="https://bors.rust-lang.org/">this cheat sheet</a> is helpful</li> |
| <li>Google is always helpful when programming. |
| You can <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=site:doc.rust-lang.org+your+query+here">search all Rust documentation</a> (the standard library, |
| the compiler, the books, the references, and the guides) to quickly find |
| information about the language and compiler.</li> |
| <li>You can also use Rustdoc's built-in search feature to find documentation on |
| types and functions within the crates you're looking at. You can also search |
| by type signature! For example, searching for <code>* -> vec</code> should find all |
| functions that return a <code>Vec<T></code>. |
| <em>Hint:</em> Find more tips and keyboard shortcuts by typing <code>?</code> on any Rustdoc |
| page!</li> |
| </ul> |
| |
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