Conditional Compilation

Rust has a special attribute, #[cfg], which allows you to compile code based on a flag passed to the compiler. It has two forms:

#[cfg(foo)]

#[cfg(bar = "baz")]

They also have some helpers:

#[cfg(any(unix, windows))]

#[cfg(all(unix, target_pointer_width = "32"))]

#[cfg(not(foo))]

These can nest arbitrarily:

#[cfg(any(not(unix), all(target_os="macos", target_arch = "powerpc")))]

As for how to enable or disable these switches, if you’re using Cargo, they get set in the [features] section of your Cargo.toml:

[features]
# no features by default
default = []

# Add feature "foo" here, then you can use it. 
# Our "foo" feature depends on nothing else.
foo = []

When you do this, Cargo passes along a flag to rustc:

--cfg feature="${feature_name}"

The sum of these cfg flags will determine which ones get activated, and therefore, which code gets compiled. Let’s take this code:

#[cfg(feature = "foo")]
mod foo {
}

If we compile it with cargo build --features "foo", it will send the --cfg feature="foo" flag to rustc, and the output will have the mod foo in it. If we compile it with a regular cargo build, no extra flags get passed on, and so, no foo module will exist.

cfg_attr

You can also set another attribute based on a cfg variable with cfg_attr:

#[cfg_attr(a, b)]

Will be the same as #[b] if a is set by cfg attribute, and nothing otherwise.

cfg!

The cfg! syntax extension lets you use these kinds of flags elsewhere in your code, too:

if cfg!(target_os = "macos") || cfg!(target_os = "ios") {
    println!("Think Different!");
}

These will be replaced by a true or false at compile-time, depending on the configuration settings.