---
documentID: "db6231dac8cfd495b1c205b0e8a32bb2ca1ade49051a78b165cdde3b8e0eb307"
docname: "api/rust/index"
title: "Rust - LIEF Documentation"
description: "Rust reference documentation for LIEF, including APIs and examples for parsing, inspecting, modifying, and writing executable formats."
canonical: "https://lief.re/doc/latest/api/rust/index.html"
markdownURL: "https://lief.re/doc/latest/api/rust/index.md"
documentationVersion: "2.0.0"
documentationChannel: "latest"
language: "en"
contentHash: "d3429e99afcbc26a1a56ff50f95e262635b44627aa0b62ad32230ea262cc8bf2"
---

# [Rust](<https://lief.re/doc/latest/api/rust/index.html#rust>)

> **Note**
> 
> The API is documented here [https://lief.re/doc/stable/rust/lief](<https://lief.re/doc/stable/rust/lief>) and the nightly doc is here: [https://lief-rs.s3.fr-par.scw.cloud/doc/latest/lief/index.html](<https://lief-rs.s3.fr-par.scw.cloud/doc/latest/lief/index.html>).

```toml
[package]
name    = "my-awesome-project"
version = "0.0.1"
edition = "2024"

[dependencies]
lief = { git = "https://github.com/lief-project/LIEF", branch = "main" }
```

> **Warning**
> 
> LIEF rust bindings are not on `docs.rs` because of network restrictions: [https://github.com/rust-lang/docs.rs/issues/2563](<https://github.com/rust-lang/docs.rs/issues/2563>)

## [Precompiled FFI Bindings](<https://lief.re/doc/latest/api/rust/index.html#precompiled-ffi-bindings>)

LIEF’s Rust bindings are split into two parts:

1. `lief`: the high-level, idiomatic Rust API.
2. `lief-ffi`: the low-level FFI API based on [cxx](<https://cxx.rs/>).

Two additional crates support the build process:

- `lief-build`: build-script helper used by `lief-ffi` to fetch the pre-compiled artifacts and emit the `cargo` link directives.
- `lief-ffigen`: standalone CLI that generates the C++ side of the `cxx` bridge from the `#[cxx::bridge]` modules declared in `lief-ffi`.

Building `lief-ffi` requires generating the C++ bridge files with `lief-ffigen` and then compiling them alongside `libLIEF`. Both steps can take several minutes.

To save time, LIEF provides pre-compiled versions of these artifacts, which are downloaded from GitHub (for releases) or an S3 bucket (for nightly builds).

### [LIEF\_RUST\_PRECOMPILED](<https://lief.re/doc/latest/api/rust/index.html#lief-rust-precompiled>)

If you need to avoid downloading these pre-compiled files, set `LIEF_RUST_PRECOMPILED` to point to the directory that contains these files:

```text
/home/romain/out
└── lib
    ├── libLIEF.a
    └── liblief-sys.a

1 directory, 2 files

LIEF_RUST_PRECOMPILED=/home/romain/out cargo build [...]
```

This variable can also be used when building in **offline** mode (e.g., `cargo --offline`).

As of now, the following targets are supported with pre-compilation:

| Target | Description |
| --- | --- |
| `x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu` | Regular Linux x86-64 (Ubuntu 21.10+, Debian 12+, …) |
| `i686-unknown-linux-gnu` | Regular Linux i686 (Ubuntu 19.10, Debian 10, …) |
| `x86_64-unknown-linux-musl` | Musl target that allows full static build |
| `i686-unknown-linux-musl` | Linux i686 with Musl |
| `aarch64-unknown-linux-gnu` | Linux aarch64 (Debian 12+) |
| `aarch64-unknown-linux-musl` | Linux aarch64 with Musl |
| `aarch64-linux-android` | Android aarch64 (API 30+) |
| `x86_64-linux-android` | Android x86\_64 (API 30+) |
| `x86_64-apple-darwin` | macOS 11+ x86-64 |
| `aarch64-apple-darwin` | macOS 11+ arm64 (Apple Silicon) |
| `aarch64-apple-ios` | iOS 12+ |
| `x86_64-pc-windows-msvc[MT]` | Regular Windows x86-64 (static UCRT runtime) |
| `x86_64-pc-windows-msvc[MD]` | Regular Windows x86-64 (dynamic UCRT runtime `.dll`) |
| `aarch64-pc-windows-msvc[MT]` | Regular Windows arm64 (static UCRT runtime) |
| `aarch64-pc-windows-msvc[MD]` | Regular Windows arm64 (dynamic UCRT runtime `.dll`) |

### [Precompilation](<https://lief.re/doc/latest/api/rust/index.html#precompilation>)

The assets of the pre-compiled output are:

1. LIEF static library: `LIEF.{a,lib}`
2. `liefsys.{a,lib}`: bridge between C++ and Rust

The LIEF static library must be compiled as described in the  [Compilation](<https://lief.re/doc/latest/compilation.html#compilation-ref>) section using the CMake option: `-DLIEF_RUST_API=ON`.

`liefsys.{a,lib}` is built in two steps. First, generate the C++ bridge files with `lief-ffigen`:

```console
$ cargo build [--profile release] -p lief-ffigen
$ target/{release,debug}/lief-ffigen \
    --output-dir cxx-bridge/         \
    --source-dir lief-ffi/
```

Then compile them as a regular CMake-based library:

```console
$ cmake -GNinja                            \
    -S api/rust/cmake-ffi/                 \
    -B cxx-bridge-build/                   \
    -DLIEF_DIR=$INSTALL_DIR/lib/cmake/LIEF \
    -DLIEF_RUST_FFI_SRC=cxx-bridge/        \
    -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=cxx-bridge-out/

$ ninja -C cxx-bridge-build/
```