embed_plist

Embed an Info.plist or launchd.plist file directly in your executable binary, brought to you by @NikolaiVazquez!

If you found this library useful, please consider sponsoring me on GitHub. ❤️

Index

1. Motivation
2. Usage
3. Minimum Supported Rust Version
4. Multi-Target Considerations
5. Get Embedded Property Lists
6. Accidental Reuse Protection
7. Implementation
8. License

Motivation

Certain programs require an embedded Info.plist or launchd.plist file to work correctly. For example:

• Info.plist is needed to obtain certain permissions on macOS 10.15 and later.

• launchd.plist is needed to make launchd daemons and user agents.

Doing this manually with include_bytes! is cumbersome. To understand why, see the implementation. This library removes the headache of doing this.

Usage

This library is available on crates.io and can be used by adding the following to your project's Cargo.toml:

[dependencies]
embed_plist = "1.2"

...and this to any source file in your crate:

embed_plist::embed_info_plist!("Info.plist");

// If making a daemon:
embed_plist::embed_launchd_plist!("launchd.plist");

Done! It's that simple. 🙂

See implementation for details on this sorcery.

Minimum Supported Rust Version

This library targets 1.39 as its minimum supported Rust version (MSRV).

Requiring a newer Rust version is considered a breaking change and will result in a "major" library version update. In other words: 0.1.z would become 0.2.0, or 1.y.z would become 2.0.0.

Multi-Target Considerations

This library only works for Mach-O binaries. When building a cross-platform program, these macro calls should be placed behind a #[cfg] to prevent linker errors on other targets.

#[cfg(target_os = "macos")]
embed_plist::embed_info_plist!("Info.plist");

Get Embedded Property Lists

After using these macros, you can get their contents by calling get_info_plist or get_launchd_plist from anywhere in your program.

We can verify that the result is correct by checking it against reading the appropriate file at runtime:

embed_plist::embed_info_plist!("Info.plist");

let embedded_plist = embed_plist::get_info_plist();
let read_plist = std::fs::read("Info.plist")?;

assert_eq!(embedded_plist, read_plist.as_slice());

If the appropriate macro has not been called, each function creates a compile-time error by failing to reference the symbol defined by that macro:

// This fails to compile:
let embedded_plist = embed_plist::get_info_plist();

Accidental Reuse Protection

Only one copy of Info.plist or launchd.plist should exist in a binary. Accidentally embedding them multiple times would break tools that read these sections.

Fortunately, this library makes reuse a compile-time error! This protection works even if these macros are reused in different modules.

// This fails to compile:
embed_plist::embed_info_plist!("Info.plist");
embed_plist::embed_info_plist!("Info.plist");

This example produces the following error:

error: symbol `_EMBED_INFO_PLIST` is already defined
 --> src/main.rs:4:1
  |
4 | embed_plist::embed_info_plist!("Info.plist");
  | ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  |
  = note: this error originates in a macro (in Nightly builds, run with -Z macro-backtrace for more info)

error: aborting due to previous error

Warning: Although the name _EMBED_INFO_PLIST can be seen here, you should not reference this symbol with e.g. an extern "C" block. I reserve the right to change this name in a SemVer-compatible update.

Implementation

Files are read using include_bytes!. This normally places data in __TEXT,__const, where immutable data is kept. However, property list data is expected to be in __TEXT,__info_plist or __TEXT,__launchd_plist. This section will explain how I accomplish that.

We begin by reading the file from disk:

const BYTES: &[u8] = include_bytes!("Info.plist");

A naïve approach is to do the following:

#[used] // Prevent optimizing out
#[link_section = "__TEXT,__info_plist"]
static PLIST: &[u8] = BYTES;

This doesn't work because only the slice's pointer and length that are placed in __TEXT,__info_plist. The referenced bytes are still placed in __TEXT,__const.

Instead, we need to arrive at the following:

#[used]
#[link_section = "__TEXT,__info_plist"]
static PLIST: [u8; N] = *BYTES;

We can get N by using len. As of Rust 1.39, it is possible to get the length of a slice within a const.

const N: usize = BYTES.len();

The next step is to dereference the bytes into a [u8; N].

There are two approaches:

1. Call include_bytes! again.

   This is not the approach used by this library because of concerns about compile performance. See the second approach for what this library does.

   The following is all we need:

   #[used]
   #[link_section = "__TEXT,__info_plist"]
   static PLIST: [u8; N] = *include_bytes!("Info.plist");
   

   This works because include_bytes! actually returns a &[u8; N]. It's often used as a &[u8] because we don't know the size when calling it.

2. Dereference our current bytes through pointer casting.

   This is tricker than the first approach (and somewhat cursed). If you know me, then it's predictable I'd go this route.

   We can get a pointer to the bytes via as_ptr, which is usable in const:

   const PTR: *const [u8; N] = BYTES.as_ptr() as *const [u8; N];
   

   Unfortunately, this pointer can't be directly dereferenced in Rust 1.39 (minimum supported version).

   // This fails to compile:
   #[used]
   #[link_section = "__TEXT,__info_plist"]
   static PLIST: [u8; N] = unsafe { *PTR };
   

   Instead, we must cast the pointer to a reference.

   You may want to reach for transmute, which was stabilized for use in const in Rust 1.46. However, earlier versions need to be supported, so that is not an option for this library.

   This bitwise cast can be accomplished with a union:

   union Transmute {
       from: *const [u8; N],
       into: &'static [u8; N],
   }
   
   const REF: &[u8; N] = unsafe { Transmute { from: PTR }.into };
   

   Finally, we can dereference our bytes:

   #[used]
   #[link_section = "__TEXT,__info_plist"]
   static PLIST: [u8; N] = *REF;
   

License

This project is released under either:

• MIT License
• Apache License (Version 2.0)

at your choosing.