Raise MSRV to 1.64 and delegate `ctypes` type aliases to `core::ffi`

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Assessment

Difficulty
2/5
Estimated time
1-3 hours
Newbie friendliness
72/100
Issue type
Refactor
Clarity
Mostly clear
Activity status
Quiet
Tech stack
rust
Domain
operating-systems

Research direction

Start with the rust-version setting in Cargo.toml and the ctypes type-alias module in src/lib.rs. Check the Rust 1.64 core::ffi types and existing target conditionals, then run the existing test suite. Done means the MSRV is 1.64, aliases delegate to core::ffi, and supported targets retain their current behavior.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Description

Just sharing this observation despite the benefit likely being minimal. Delegating the C FFI type aliases to those from core::ffi by bumping rust-version to 1.64 seems desirable?

It'd have avoided the need for PRs like this in March 2026 for example (which is merged but still unreleased).

Details

Presently linux-raw-sys supports Rust 1.63 (Aug 2022) as a minimum (in May 2023 rust-version was bumped from 1.48 to benefit from improved const fn support):

https://github.com/sunfishcode/linux-raw-sys/blob/3b15c17f2688445cd3e9ef2907113829837773dd/Cargo.toml#L13

In Nov 2021 linux-raw-sys switched from a cty crate dep to vendoring it's own ctypes type alias module, which presently has required a bit of maintenance support over the past year for Tier 3 targets with ensuring the correct c_char (m68k, hexagon (as a follow-up to restoring support), MIPS R6).

Since Rust 1.64 (Sep 2022) the equivalent FFI C types have been available via the core crate (the target list is managed by a cfg_select! macro, and prior to that the cfg_if! crate macro).

Although this comment says core was not available for a m68k target? (unless they used rustc_codegen_gcc) but as core is already used elsewhere in this crate I assume that wouldn't equate to a regression 😅

Dominant language
Rust
Stars
71
Forks
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