cargo add <package>

[shadowmint]

This is probably a no brainer, but I thought I'd drop it in here as a yes-please feature request.

I just discovered that with bower and npm if you install a package into a local directory scope (eg. bower install moment) with a particular flag (in this case bower install moment -S) it not only installs the moment recent version of the package into the local folder; it updates the manifest file automatically:

{
  "name": "configtool",
  "version": "0.1.0",
  "dependencies": {
    "underscore": "1.5.2",
    "angular": "1.2.3",
    "angular-resource": "1.2.3",
    "angular-sanitize": "~1.2.3",
    "momentjs": "~2.5.1" // <---- This gets automatically added 
  }
}

This is a really lovely workflow to use, I thought I'd drop it in here as a feature request.

[wycats]

I definitely want cargo add <package-name> [FLAGS], which would add the package to the manifest, with optional flags (such as a Github URL if not using the central repo).

Does that sound like what you want?

[shadowmint]

yep, exactly.

[killercup]

There has been some work on this here and here.

[Turbo87]

@killercup any reason for making this a plugin instead of implementing it right into cargo itself?

[killercup]

@Turbo87 It's nice to test implementations and CLI interfaces in external projects. (Plugin → Built-in is way more easy than Built-in → Plugin.)

[Turbo87]

I see, thanks

[Turbo87]

I've written a help text for the potential new add command. Any feedback would be very welcome.

Add dependencies to the Cargo.toml file

Usage:
    cargo add [options] <crate>...

Options:
    -h, --help               Print this message
    --build                  Add to the build-dependencies section
    --dev                    Add to the dev-dependencies section
    --optional               Add as an optional dependency
    --features FEATURES      Space-separated list of features to also use
    --no-default-features    Do not use the `default` feature
    --target TRIPLE          Add dependency only for the target triple

This command will add the specified <crate> to your Cargo.toml file. A <crate>
can be anything of the following:

    1) crate name (e.g. `libc`, see https://crates.io/)
    2) crate name with a version (e.g. `libc@0.1.10`)
    3) local path to another crate (e.g. `../libc`)
    4) git url (e.g. `https://github.com/rust-lang/libc`)
    5) git url with revision (e.g. `https://github.com/rust-lang/libc#473c10c`)

This command can be used to add multiple crates at once, but any specified
options will apply to all of them.

[killercup]

@Turbo87 nice! That's basically a complete docopt definition :)

The equivalent options should work for cargo rm. (Also, you might want to add --build for build-dependencies.)

[Turbo87]

@killercup Thanks for reminding me of the build-dependencies section. I thought I read about it somewhere but then later I couldn't find anything about it on http://doc.crates.io/manifest.html so I skipped it. I've updated the help text above.

I haven't thought about cargo rm yet, but it might be something for the future once git add is implemented.

[killercup]

@Turbo87 I've spend some time this weekend refactoring my cargo-edit project. It now has a cargo add binary that looks quite like what you suggested above. I haven't done any extensive testing, but the simple things should work: https://github.com/killercup/cargo-edit

[Turbo87]

cool, thanks for the feedback. I'll have a look at it once I have a bit of spare time.

[alexcrichton]

With cargo-install plus cargo-edit, I'm gonna close this in favor of that repo, thanks @killercup!

[yoshuawuyts]

Not sure this should be closed hey, all of npm's users (which is a pretty large number at this point) are used to passing a --save flag on install. If cargo doesn't support pinning versions out of the box, the flow will feel awkward to users coming from npm.

I reckon it'd be great for users if cargo supported add or install --save out of the box. I don't think it's reasonable for everyone new to Rust to find out about the cargo-edit through this issue when they get started.

[steveklabnik]

We will probably pull cargo-edit into cargo itself, but there are a few issues that need fixed before that's considered. It has basically universal support though.

On Feb 22, 2016, 09:00 -0500, Yoshua Wuytsnotifications@github.com, wrote:

Not sure this should be closed hey, all ofnpm's users (which is a pretty large number at this point) are used to passing a--saveflag on install. If cargo doesn't support pinning versions out of the box, the flow will feel awkward to users coming from npm.

I reckon it'd be great for users if cargo supportedaddorinstall --saveout of the box. I don't think it's reasonable for everyone new to Rust to find out about thecargo-editthrough this issue when they get started.

—
Reply to this email directly orview it on GitHub(#4 (comment)).

[alexcrichton]

Indeed, I'd love to move these in tree! The major blocker is having better support for modifying TOML because today artifacts such as formatting, comments, etc are lost when using cargo-edit.

[donaldpipowitch]

What is the state of this? Will cargo add be a part of Cargo itself in the future? Or should it stay separated in cargo-edit?

[killercup]

The problems @alexcrichton mentioned in February are still present. There are a few crates that aim to make TOML editing less destructive, but I haven't seen one that is feature-complete enough to be used in cargo-edit. (If that changed since I last looked at it—I would love to see a PR for this! 😄)