Setuptools plugin for Rust extensions
setuptools-rust
is a plugin for setuptools
to build Rust Python extensions implemented with PyO3 or rust-cpython.
Compile and distribute Python extensions written in Rust as easily as if
they were written in C.
Quickstart
The following is a very basic tutorial that shows how to use setuptools-rust
in pyproject.toml
.
It assumes that you already have a bunch of Python and Rust files that you want
to distribute. You can see examples for these files in the
examples/hello-world
directory in the github repository.
The PyO3 docs have detailed information on how to write Python
modules in Rust.
hello-world
├── python
│ └── hello_world
│ └── __init__.py
└── rust
└── lib.rs
Once the implementation files are in place, we need to add a pyproject.toml
file that tells anyone that wants to use your project how to build it.
In this file, we use an array of tables
(TOML jargon equivalent to Python's list of dicts) for [[tool.setuptools-rust.ext-modules]]
,
to specify different extension modules written in Rust:
[build-system]
requires = ["setuptools", "setuptools-rust"]
build-backend = "setuptools.build_meta"
[project]
name = "hello-world"
version = "1.0"
[tool.setuptools.packages]
find = { where = ["python"] }
[[tool.setuptools-rust.ext-modules]]
target = "hello_world._lib"
path = "Cargo.toml"
binding = "PyO3"
Each extension module should map directly into the corresponding [lib]
table on the
Cargo manifest file:
[package]
name = "hello-world"
version = "0.1.0"
edition = "2021"
[dependencies]
pyo3 = "0.22.0"
[lib]
name = "_lib"
path = "rust/lib.rs"
crate-type = ["cdylib"]
You will also need to tell Setuptools that the Rust files are required to build your
project from the source distribution.
That can be done either via MANIFEST.in
(see example below) or via a plugin like
setuptools-scm
.
# MANIFEST.in
include Cargo.toml
recursive-include rust *.rs
With these files in place, you can install the project in a virtual environment
for testing and making sure everything is working correctly:
# cd hello-world
python3 -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate # on Linux or macOS
.venv\Scripts\activate # on Windows
python -m pip install -e .
python
>>> import hello_world
# ... try running something from your new extension module ...
# ... better write some tests with pytest ...
Next steps and final remarks
-
When you are ready to distribute your project, have a look on
the notes in the documentation about building wheels.
-
Cross-compiling is also supported, using one of
crossenv
,
cross
or
cargo-zigbuild
.
For examples see the test-crossenv
and test-cross
and test-zigbuild
Github actions jobs in
ci.yml
.
-
You can also use [[tool.setuptools-rust.bins]]
(instead of [[tool.setuptools-rust.ext-modules]]
),
if you want to distribute a binary executable written in Rust (instead of a library that can be imported by the Python runtime).
Note however that distributing both library and executable (or multiple executables),
may significantly increase the size of the
wheel
file distributed by the
package index
and therefore increase build, download and installation times.
Another approach is to use a Python entry-point that calls the Rust
implementation (exposed via PyO3 bindings).
See the hello-world
example for more insights.
-
For a complete reference of the configuration options, see the
API reference.
You can use any parameter defined by the RustExtension
class with
[[tool.setuptools-rust.ext-modules]]
and any parameter defined by the
RustBin
class with [[tool.setuptools-rust.bins]]
; just remember to replace
underscore characters _
with dashes -
in your pyproject.toml
file.
-
Cargo.toml
allow only one [lib]
table per file.
If you require multiple extension modules you will need to write multiple Cargo.toml
files.
Alternatively you can create a single private Rust top-level module that exposes
multiple submodules (using PyO3's submodules),
which may also reduce the size of the build artifacts.
You can always keep your extension modules private and wrap them in pure Python
to have fine control over the public API.
-
If want to include both [[tool.setuptools-rust.bins]]
and [[tool.setuptools-rust.ext-modules]]
in the same macOS wheel, you might have to manually add an extra build.rs
file,
see PyO3/setuptools-rust#351
for more information about the workaround.
-
For more examples, see:
hello-world
:
a more complete version of the code used in this tutorial that mixes both
[[tool.setuptools-rust.ext-modules]]
and [[tool.setuptools-rust.bins]]
in a single distribution.html-py-ever
:
a more advanced example that uses Rust crates as dependencies.rust_with_cffi
:
uses both Rust and CFFI.namespace_package
:
integrates Rust-written modules into PEP 420 namespace packages.hello-world-script
:
uses Rust only for creating binary executables, not library modules.