Chilkat for Rust — the chilkat crate

Add to your project

cargo add chilkat

or add the dependency to Cargo.toml by hand:

[dependencies]
chilkat = "11.6"

Then cargo build. On the first build the chilkat-sys build script downloads chilkat-rust-<target>.tar.gz for your target triple from https://chilkatdownload.com/<version>/, checks its SHA-256 against the table compiled into the crate, unpacks it into your user cache directory (~/.cache/chilkat on Linux, ~/Library/Caches/chilkat on macOS, %LOCALAPPDATA%\chilkat on Windows), and links it statically. Later builds — in this project or any other — reuse the cached, verified copy, so the download happens once per Chilkat version per target.

Quick start

use chilkat::{Http, JsonObject};

fn main() -> chilkat::Result<()> {
    // Any string unlocks the fully functional 30-day trial. Call once per process.
    chilkat::unlock_bundle("Anything for 30-day trial")?;

    let http = Http::new();
    let body = http.quick_get_str("https://api.github.com/repos/rust-lang/rust")?;

    let json = JsonObject::new();
    json.load(&body)?;
    println!("{} stars", json.int_of("stargazers_count"));
    Ok(())
}

Every method that can fail returns chilkat::Result<T>, so ? works as usual. The error carries the object's LastErrorText from the moment of the failure (e.last_error_text()), the class and method names, and implements std::error::Error.

Supported targets

A prebuilt Chilkat library is published for each of these Rust target triples with every Chilkat release. The archive is what the build script downloads; the name is chilkat-rust-<triple>.tar.gz.

Cross-compiling works the same way: the build script downloads the archive for the --target you pass to cargo, not for the host. A target not in this table fails the build with a message naming the supported targets; if you need another one, contact Chilkat support.

Offline builds, vendoring, and your own Chilkat library

Build machines without internet access, or that must not download during a build, point the build script at a library directory instead:

# Linux / macOS: the directory containing libchilkat.a
CHILKAT_LIB_DIR=/opt/chilkat/lib cargo build --release

# Windows (MSVC): the directory containing chilkat.lib (and chilkat_mt.lib)
set CHILKAT_LIB_DIR=C:\chilkat\lib
cargo build --release

To populate that directory, download the archive for your target once from a connected machine and unpack it — the URL is

https://chilkatdownload.com/<version>/chilkat-rust-<target triple>.tar.gz

# for example, for chilkat = "11.6.1" on 64-bit Linux:
https://chilkatdownload.com/11.6.1/chilkat-rust-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu.tar.gz

where <version> is the exact version of the chilkat crate you depend on (shown on crates.io and in Cargo.lock). Each archive contains the static library, license.pdf, a software bill of materials, and a VERSION file. The SHA-256 of every published archive is listed in the checksums.txt file inside the chilkat-sys crate of the same version.

All build-script settings:

The build script never downloads on docs.rs, and a checksum mismatch fails the build rather than linking an unverified library.

How the Chilkat API maps to Rust

The reference documentation shows the exact Rust signature of every member.

Licensing

This is the full-version Chilkat product. Chilkat libraries are fully functional for a 30-day evaluation; passing any non-empty string to chilkat::unlock_bundle starts the trial, and a purchased unlock code removes the time limit. The license terms are in the LICENSE file of the crate (and license.pdf in every native archive). For questions, see the reference documentation or contact Chilkat support.