# Advanced Linking

The common cases of linking with Rust have been covered earlier in this book, but supporting the range of linking possibilities made available by other languages is important for Rust to achieve seamless interaction with native libraries.

# Link args

There is one other way to tell `rustc` how to customize linking, and that is via the `link_args` attribute. This attribute is applied to `extern` blocks and specifies raw flags which need to get passed to the linker when producing an artifact. An example usage would be:

#![feature(link_args)] #[link_args = "-foo -bar -baz"] extern {} fn main() {}

    #![feature(link_args)]

    #[link_args = "-foo -bar -baz"]
    extern {}

Note that this feature is currently hidden behind the `feature(link_args)` gate because this is not a sanctioned way of performing linking. Right now `rustc` shells out to the system linker (`gcc` on most systems, `link.exe` on MSVC), so it makes sense to provide extra command line arguments, but this will not always be the case. In the future `rustc` may use LLVM directly to link native libraries, in which case `link_args` will have no meaning. You can achieve the same effect as the `link_args` attribute with the `-C link-args` argument to `rustc`.

It is highly recommended to not use this attribute, and rather use the more formal `#[link(...)]` attribute on `extern` blocks instead.

# Static linking

Static linking refers to the process of creating output that contains all required libraries and so doesn't need libraries installed on every system where you want to use your compiled project. Pure-Rust dependencies are statically linked by default so you can use created binaries and libraries without installing Rust everywhere. By contrast, native libraries (e.g. `libc` and `libm`) are usually dynamically linked, but it is possible to change this and statically link them as well.

Linking is a very platform-dependent topic, and static linking may not even be possible on some platforms! This section assumes some basic familiarity with linking on your platform of choice.

## Linux

By default, all Rust programs on Linux will link to the system `libc` along with a number of other libraries. Let's look at an example on a 64-bit Linux machine with GCC and `glibc` (by far the most common `libc` on Linux):

    $ cat example.rs
    fn main() {}
    $ rustc example.rs
    $ ldd example
            linux-vdso.so.1 =>  (0x00007ffd565fd000)
            libdl.so.2 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libdl.so.2 (0x00007fa81889c000)
            libpthread.so.0 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libpthread.so.0 (0x00007fa81867e000)
            librt.so.1 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/librt.so.1 (0x00007fa818475000)
            libgcc_s.so.1 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libgcc_s.so.1 (0x00007fa81825f000)
            libc.so.6 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6 (0x00007fa817e9a000)
            /lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 (0x00007fa818cf9000)
            libm.so.6 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libm.so.6 (0x00007fa817b93000)

Dynamic linking on Linux can be undesirable if you wish to use new library features on old systems or target systems which do not have the required dependencies for your program to run.

Static linking is supported via an alternative `libc`, `musl`. You can compile your own version of Rust with `musl` enabled and install it into a custom directory with the instructions below:

    $ mkdir musldist
    $ PREFIX=$(pwd)/musldist
    $
    $ # Build musl
    $ curl -O http://www.musl-libc.org/releases/musl-1.1.10.tar.gz
    $ tar xf musl-1.1.10.tar.gz
    $ cd musl-1.1.10/
    musl-1.1.10 $ ./configure --disable-shared --prefix=$PREFIX
    musl-1.1.10 $ make
    musl-1.1.10 $ make install
    musl-1.1.10 $ cd ..
    $ du -h musldist/lib/libc.a
    2.2M    musldist/lib/libc.a
    $
    $ # Build libunwind.a
    $ curl -O http://llvm.org/releases/3.7.0/llvm-3.7.0.src.tar.xz
    $ tar xf llvm-3.7.0.src.tar.xz
    $ cd llvm-3.7.0.src/projects/
    llvm-3.7.0.src/projects $ curl http://llvm.org/releases/3.7.0/libunwind-3.7.0.src.tar.xz | tar xJf -
    llvm-3.7.0.src/projects $ mv libunwind-3.7.0.src libunwind
    llvm-3.7.0.src/projects $ mkdir libunwind/build
    llvm-3.7.0.src/projects $ cd libunwind/build
    llvm-3.7.0.src/projects/libunwind/build $ cmake -DLLVM_PATH=../../.. -DLIBUNWIND_ENABLE_SHARED=0 ..
    llvm-3.7.0.src/projects/libunwind/build $ make
    llvm-3.7.0.src/projects/libunwind/build $ cp lib/libunwind.a $PREFIX/lib/
    llvm-3.7.0.src/projects/libunwind/build $ cd ../../../../
    $ du -h musldist/lib/libunwind.a
    164K    musldist/lib/libunwind.a
    $
    $ # Build musl-enabled rust
    $ git clone https://github.com/rust-lang/rust.git muslrust
    $ cd muslrust
    muslrust $ ./configure --target=x86_64-unknown-linux-musl --musl-root=$PREFIX --prefix=$PREFIX
    muslrust $ make
    muslrust $ make install
    muslrust $ cd ..
    $ du -h musldist/bin/rustc
    12K     musldist/bin/rustc

You now have a build of a `musl`-enabled Rust! Because we've installed it to a custom prefix we need to make sure our system can find the binaries and appropriate libraries when we try and run it:

    $ export PATH=$PREFIX/bin:$PATH
    $ export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$PREFIX/lib:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH

Let's try it out!

    $ echo 'fn main() { println!("hi!"); panic!("failed"); }' > example.rs
    $ rustc --target=x86_64-unknown-linux-musl example.rs
    $ ldd example
            not a dynamic executable
    $ ./example
    hi!
    thread '<main>' panicked at 'failed', example.rs:1

Success! This binary can be copied to almost any Linux machine with the same machine architecture and run without issues.

`cargo build` also permits the `--target` option so you should be able to build your crates as normal. However, you may need to recompile your native libraries against `musl` before they can be linked against.