Nine Rules for Creating Procedural Macros in Rust - by Carl Kadie - Rust Linz, December 2022

Rust Testing

Discover the 9 essential rules for creating procedural macros in Rust, including simplicity, testing, and elegance, and learn how to coordinate your projects with Rust's workspaces feature.

Key takeaways

The workshop should be about procedural macros in Rust, and there are 9 rules to create them.
The first rule is to always develop a procedural macro, and it can be recursive.
Any input macro can be created using the PROS macro, which can handle the varieties of input.
The second rule is to create a procedural macro, which can handle the conversion among the different types.
The third rule is to use a good syntax tree items such as item fn, signature, and block.
The fourth rule is to test the procedural macros thoroughly.
The fifth rule is to keep the procedural macros simple and avoid unnecessary complexity.
The sixth rule is to document the procedural macros well.
The seventh rule is to integrate the procedural macros with the rest of the code.
The eighth rule is to follow the rules of elegant Rust API design.
The ninth rule is to test the procedural macros from the beginning.
The top-level project in the workshop has three projects: the derive project, the attribute macro project, and the SYN project.
The Rust projects can be coordinated and worked together easily.
The UI directory in the Rust project includes UI tests that use the try build crate.
There is an option in Rust called workspaces that can coordinate the different projects.
It is recommendable to keep the procedural macros simple and easy to understand.
There is a challenge in creating procedural macros, but the any input macro can handle it.
The any input macro can take any kind of string, including references to strings.
There are some efforts to improve debugging in Rust, such as the work done by the Fastlim project.
Procedural macros can help in creating unit tests that can be debugged.
The any input macro can also handle the conversion among the different types.
Error handling is crucial in creating procedural macros, and the any input macro can handle it.
There is a need to define the rules of elegant Rust API design.

Nine Rules for Creating Procedural Macros in Rust - by Carl Kadie - Rust Linz, December 2022

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