Five simple steps to use any Arduino C++ library in a Rust project 🦀

1. rust-bindgen

   1 56 4,931 9.1 Rust

   Automatically generates Rust FFI bindings to C (and some C++) libraries.

   

   We are planning to use rust-bindgen project to automatically generate rust bindings based on the C++ library header. We will use bindgen as rust library during the build time, however it require libclang to operate, so we have to install it:

2. InfluxDB

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3. avr-hal

   2 30 1,480 7.7 Rust

   embedded-hal abstractions for AVR microcontrollers

   

   Rust language shares all advantages of efficient C++ code. With the rust community growing year after year, more and more people try using rust to program their Arduino boards. Consequently, the Arduino Rust ecosystem have significantly developed in the last couple of years. The Hardware Abstraction Layer for AVR microcontrollers avr-hal, Rudino library and ravedude CLI utility to make Rust development for AVR microcontrollers easier are just a few examples of the solid foundation developed so far.

4. ruduino

   3 4 725 0.0 Rust

   Reusable components for the Arduino Uno.

   

   Rust language shares all advantages of efficient C++ code. With the rust community growing year after year, more and more people try using rust to program their Arduino boards. Consequently, the Arduino Rust ecosystem have significantly developed in the last couple of years. The Hardware Abstraction Layer for AVR microcontrollers avr-hal, Rudino library and ravedude CLI utility to make Rust development for AVR microcontrollers easier are just a few examples of the solid foundation developed so far.

5. rust-arduino-helpers

   4 1 2 10.0 Rust

   experients in mixing Rust and C/C++ on the Arduino Uno

   

   Third-party library availability is, however, still lagging behind. Luckily enough, Rust supports nearly seamless interaction with the C code! While it is very well possible to link almost any Arduino library to the rust project, I was not able to find any meaningful description of the steps required to do so! My best hit was the rust-arduino-helpers project. Despite that the code quality is, unfortunately, not great (it contains large fragments of commented code and was not updated for a while), it was a great help for me to find the right direction.

6. Arduino-LiquidCrystal-I2C-library

   5 3 433 0.0 C++

   Discontinued Library for the LiquidCrystal LCD display connected to an Arduino board.

   What we are going to do is simply try writing a text message to the LCD Display using Rust. In order to do so, we will have to figure out how to link and use the LiquidCrystal-I2C Arduino library in our rust crate. In other words, we would like to do something like this, but in Rust.

7. rust_arduino

   6 1 28 0.0 Rust

   How to use an Arduino library in a Rust project?

   

   The source code is available on GitHub. I was able to run it on both Linux and Windows PC. I would be focusing on the Linux (Fedora 35) installation steps in this tutorial, windows users could refer to the corresponding section in the readme.md file.

8. Arduino

   7 145 14,407 2.2 Java

   Arduino IDE 1.x (by arduino)

   

   Arduino helps circuit developers to build electronic projects and is, perhaps, the most used open-source hardware and software platform. It is popular across millions of hobbyists across the world. Historically, Arduino boards are programmed with C++ programming language using the Arduino IDE. The availability of powerful ARM-based Arduino-compatible boards made it possible to use python, JavaScript, or even a browser to program your circuit. While they are easier to study for a new joiner without an existing programming background, C++ stays a default language choice, especially when dealing with cheap and low-memory AVR-controller boards and having a need to run more or less complex projects.

9. Sevalla

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10. cargo-generate

    8 15 2,258 9.0 Rust

    cargo, make me a project

    

    We would like to simply the next step and use cargo-generate tool to create our Arduino project from a template. Somehow (please, do not ask me why) it requires Perl to compile, so we have to do:

11. ArduinoCore-avr

    9 137 1,379 4.2 C

    The Official Arduino AVR core

    

    Arduino.h is the main include file for the Arduino SDK

12. circuitpython

    10 94 4,325 0.0 C

    CircuitPython - a Python implementation for teaching coding with microcontrollers

    

    Arduino helps circuit developers to build electronic projects and is, perhaps, the most used open-source hardware and software platform. It is popular across millions of hobbyists across the world. Historically, Arduino boards are programmed with C++ programming language using the Arduino IDE. The availability of powerful ARM-based Arduino-compatible boards made it possible to use python, JavaScript, or even a browser to program your circuit. While they are easier to study for a new joiner without an existing programming background, C++ stays a default language choice, especially when dealing with cheap and low-memory AVR-controller boards and having a need to run more or less complex projects.

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