Erlang NIF in Rust

This is an example of how to implement a NIF in Rust. It works for me, might work for you, but don't be mad if it eats your homework.

While it would be feasible to write real-world code following this example, as the entire erl_nif.h interface is available thanks to bindgen, it would still require a lot of yak shaving. You'll be much better off using Daniel Goertzen's ruster_unsafe. It's a Rust crate that takes the idea of this example a lot further and delivers ready to use bindings. Don't miss ruster_unsafe demo.

Running the code

Adjust the following options in Makefile to match your environment:

ERLANG_SRC_DIR ?= ${HOME}/.kerl/builds/17.1/otp_src_17.1
ERLANG_EI_LIB_DIR ?= ${HOME}/apps/erlang/17.1/lib/erl_interface-3.7.17/lib
RUST_DIR ?= ${HOME}/apps/rust/1.0.0

Then run:

make test

If you got

Test OK - the Rust NIF works

as the last output line then everything worked fine - you have the example dynamically loaded library in priv/. Otherwise, you might've received

Test failed - try building the dynamically loaded library manually

in which case the real fun begins - please inspect the Makefile and file an issue on what went wrong (did I mention that PRs are also welcome?).

?!

This is an example project for a short presentation about using Rust NIFs from within Erlang.