dfinity / dfinity/candid

Candid to Rust binding

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enhancement
Dominant language
Rust
Stars
301
Forks
85
Avg merge
1h 4m
Merged PRs (30d)
4

Description

There is no one-to-one mapping between Candid and Rust types.

  • A candid type can map to multiple Rust types. For example, vec record { text; int } can map to Vec<(String, Int)>, HashMap<&str, Int>, or even &[Box<(Cow<str>, Arc<i128>)>].
  • The fundamental difference between Candid typing and Rust is structural typing vs nominal typing. That is, when you create a struct/enum type in Rust, you have to give the type a name, which doesn’t necessarily exist in the did file, or may not the best name you want. There’s also the question of what traits to derive for each struct.

As a starting point, we can generate a simple binding with default types and let the users to adjust the binding by hand. To automate the customization, we can design a builder similar to https://docs.rs/prost-build/0.7.0/prost_build/struct.Config.html

TODO:

  • design for config struct
  • handle management canister for agent target
  • detect if renaming collapse names
  • non-blocking call for agent
  • tests for golden files

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start by reviewing the proposed default Candid-to-Rust bindings and the TODO list, beginning with the config struct design. The issue names no files or entry points; completion would require resolving the listed design, agent, naming, non-blocking call, and golden-file testing work.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
rust
Domain
tooling
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
5/5
Estimated time
Over a week
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Needs clarification
Newbie friendliness
25/100

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