rust-analyzer/docs/user

The main interface to rust-analyzer is the LSP implementation. To install lsp server, use cargo install-ra --server, which is a shorthand for cargo install --package ra_lsp_server. The binary is named ra_lsp_server, you should be able to use it with any LSP-compatible editor. We use custom extensions to LSP, so special client-side support is required to take full advantage of rust-analyzer. This repository contains support code for VS Code and Emacs.

Rust Analyzer needs sources of rust standard library to work, so you might need to execute

$ rustup component add rust-src

See ./features.md document for a list of features that are available.

VS Code

Prerequisites:

In order to build the VS Code plugin, you need to have node.js and npm with a minimum version of 10 installed. Please refer to node.js and npm documentation for installation instructions.

You will also need the most recent version of VS Code: we don't try to maintain compatibility with older versions yet.

The experimental VS Code plugin can then be built and installed by executing the following commands:

$ git clone https://github.com/rust-analyzer/rust-analyzer.git --depth 1
$ cd rust-analyzer
$ cargo install-ra

The automatic installation is expected to just work for common cases, if it doesn't, report bugs!

If you have an unusual setup (for example, code is not in the PATH), you should adapt these manual installation instructions:

$ git clone https://github.com/rust-analyzer/rust-analyzer.git --depth 1
$ cd rust-analyzer
$ cargo install --path ./crates/ra_lsp_server/ --force
$ cd ./editors/code
$ npm install
$ ./node_modules/vsce/out/vsce package
$ code --install-extension ./ra-lsp-0.0.1.vsix

It's better to remove existing Rust plugins to avoid interference.

Beyond basic LSP features, there are some extension commands which you can invoke via Ctrl+Shift+P or bind to a shortcut. See ./features.md for details.

For updates, pull the latest changes from the master branch, run cargo install-ra again, and restart VS Code instance. See microsoft/vscode#72308 for why a full restart is needed.

Settings

• rust-analyzer.highlightingOn: enables experimental syntax highlighting
• rust-analyzer.showWorkspaceLoadedNotification: to ease troubleshooting, a notification is shown by default when a workspace is loaded
• rust-analyzer.enableEnhancedTyping: by default, rust-analyzer intercepts Enter key to make it easier to continue comments. Note that it may conflict with VIM emulation plugin.
• rust-analyzer.raLspServerPath: path to ra_lsp_server executable
• rust-analyzer.enableCargoWatchOnStartup: prompt to install & enable cargo watch for live error highlighting (note, this does not use rust-analyzer)
• rust-analyzer.excludeGlobs: a list of glob-patterns for exclusion (see globset docs for syntax). Note: glob patterns are applied to all Cargo packages and a rooted at a package root. This is not very intuitive and a limitation of a current implementation.
• rust-analyzer.useClientWatching: use client provided file watching instead of notify watching.
• rust-analyzer.cargo-watch.command: cargo-watch command. (e.g: clippy will run as cargo watch -x clippy )
• rust-analyzer.cargo-watch.arguments: cargo-watch check arguments. (e.g: --features="shumway,pdf" will run as cargo watch -x "check --features="shumway,pdf"" )
• rust-analyzer.trace.server: enables internal logging
• rust-analyzer.trace.cargo-watch: enables cargo-watch logging
• RUST_SRC_PATH: environment variable that overwrites the sysroot

Emacs

Prerequisites:

emacs-lsp, dash and ht packages.

Installation:

• add ra-emacs-lsp.el to load path and require it in init.el
• run lsp in a rust buffer
• (Optionally) bind commands like rust-analyzer-join-lines or rust-analyzer-extend-selection to keys, and enable rust-analyzer-inlay-hints-mode to get inline type hints

Vim and NeoVim

• Install coc.nvim by following the instructions at coc.nvim
  • You will need nodejs installed.
  • You may want to include some of the sample vim configurations from here
  • Note that if you use a plugin manager other than vim-plug, you may need to manually checkout the release branch wherever your plugin manager cloned it. Otherwise you will get errors about a missing javascript file.
• Run :CocInstall coc-rust-analyzer to install coc-rust-analyzer, this extension implemented most of the features supported in the VSCode extension:
  • same configurations as VSCode extension, rust-analyzer.raLspServerPath, rust-analyzer.enableCargoWatchOnStartup etc.
  • same commands too, rust-analyzer.analyzerStatus, rust-analyzer.startCargoWatch etc.
  • highlighting and inlay_hints are not implemented yet

Vim and NeoVim Alternative

• Install LanguageClient-neovim by following the instructions here

  • No extra run-time is required as this server is written in Rust
  • The github project wiki has extra tips on configuration

• Configure by adding this to your vim/neovim config file (replacing the existing rust specific line if it exists):

let g:LanguageClient_serverCommands = {
\ 'rust': ['ra_lsp_server'],
\ }

Sublime Text 3

Prequisites:

LSP package.

Installation:

• Invoke the command palette with Ctrl+Shift+P
• Type LSP Settings to open the LSP preferences editor
• Add the following LSP client definition to your settings:

"rust-analyzer": {
    "command": ["ra_lsp_server"],
    "languageId": "rust",
    "scopes": ["source.rust"],
    "syntaxes": [
        "Packages/Rust/Rust.sublime-syntax",
        "Packages/Rust Enhanced/RustEnhanced.sublime-syntax"
    ]
}

• You can now invoke the command palette and type LSP enable to locally/globally enable the rust-analyzer LSP (type LSP enable, then choose either locally or globally, then select rust-analyzer)

• Note that ra_lsp_server binary must be in $PATH for this to work. If it's not the case, you can specify full path to the binary, which is typically .cargo/bin/ra_lsp_server.