Rust API Guidelines Checklist
- Naming (crate aligns with Rust naming conventions)
- Casing conforms to RFC 430 (C-CASE)
-
Ad-hoc conversions follow
as_
,to_
,into_
conventions (C-CONV) - Getter names follow Rust convention (C-GETTER)
-
Methods on collections that produce iterators follow
iter
,iter_mut
,into_iter
(C-ITER) - Iterator type names match the methods that produce them (C-ITER-TY)
- Feature names are free of placeholder words (C-FEATURE)
- Names use a consistent word order (C-WORD-ORDER)
- Interoperability (crate interacts nicely with other library functionality)
-
Types eagerly implement common traits (C-COMMON-TRAITS)
Copy
,Clone
,Eq
,PartialEq
,Ord
,PartialOrd
,Hash
,Debug
,Display
,Default
-
Conversions use the standard traits
From
,AsRef
,AsMut
(C-CONV-TRAITS) -
Collections implement
FromIterator
andExtend
(C-COLLECT) -
Data structures implement Serde's
Serialize
,Deserialize
(C-SERDE) -
Types are
Send
andSync
where possible (C-SEND-SYNC) - Error types are meaningful and well-behaved (C-GOOD-ERR)
-
Binary number types provide
Hex
,Octal
,Binary
formatting (C-NUM-FMT) -
Generic reader/writer functions take
R: Read
andW: Write
by value (C-RW-VALUE)
-
Types eagerly implement common traits (C-COMMON-TRAITS)
- Macros (crate presents well-behaved macros)
- Input syntax is evocative of the output (C-EVOCATIVE)
- Macros compose well with attributes (C-MACRO-ATTR)
- Item macros work anywhere that items are allowed (C-ANYWHERE)
- Item macros support visibility specifiers (C-MACRO-VIS)
- Type fragments are flexible (C-MACRO-TY)
- Documentation (crate is abundantly documented)
- Crate level docs are thorough and include examples (C-CRATE-DOC)
- All items have a rustdoc example (C-EXAMPLE)
-
Examples use
?
, nottry!
, notunwrap
(C-QUESTION-MARK) - Function docs include error, panic, and safety considerations (C-FAILURE)
- Prose contains hyperlinks to relevant things (C-LINK)
-
Cargo.toml includes all common metadata (C-METADATA)
- authors, description, license, homepage, documentation, repository, keywords, categories
- Release notes document all significant changes (C-RELNOTES)
- Rustdoc does not show unhelpful implementation details (C-HIDDEN)
- Predictability (crate enables legible code that acts how it looks)
- Smart pointers do not add inherent methods (C-SMART-PTR)
- Conversions live on the most specific type involved (C-CONV-SPECIFIC)
- Functions with a clear receiver are methods (C-METHOD)
- Functions do not take out-parameters (C-NO-OUT)
- Operator overloads are unsurprising (C-OVERLOAD)
-
Only smart pointers implement
Deref
andDerefMut
(C-DEREF) - Constructors are static, inherent methods (C-CTOR)
- Flexibility (crate supports diverse real-world use cases)
- Functions expose intermediate results to avoid duplicate work (C-INTERMEDIATE)
- Caller decides where to copy and place data (C-CALLER-CONTROL)
- Functions minimize assumptions about parameters by using generics (C-GENERIC)
- Traits are object-safe if they may be useful as a trait object (C-OBJECT)
- Type safety (crate leverages the type system effectively)
- Newtypes provide static distinctions (C-NEWTYPE)
-
Arguments convey meaning through types, not
bool
orOption
(C-CUSTOM-TYPE) -
Types for a set of flags are
bitflags
, not enums (C-BITFLAG) - Builders enable construction of complex values (C-BUILDER)
- Dependability (crate is unlikely to do the wrong thing)
- Functions validate their arguments (C-VALIDATE)
- Destructors never fail (C-DTOR-FAIL)
- Destructors that may block have alternatives (C-DTOR-BLOCK)
- Debuggability (crate is conducive to easy debugging)
-
All public types implement
Debug
(C-DEBUG) -
Debug
representation is never empty (C-DEBUG-NONEMPTY)
-
All public types implement
- Future proofing (crate is free to improve without breaking users' code)
- Sealed traits protect against downstream implementations (C-SEALED)
- Structs have private fields (C-STRUCT-PRIVATE)
- Newtypes encapsulate implementation details (C-NEWTYPE-HIDE)
- Data structures do not duplicate derived trait bounds (C-STRUCT-BOUNDS)
- Necessities (to whom they matter, they really matter)
- Public dependencies of a stable crate are stable (C-STABLE)
- Crate and its dependencies have a permissive license (C-PERMISSIVE)