Document default values of package.include and package.exclude of Cargo.toml

[malaire]

Default values of package.include and package.exclude doesn't seem to be documented anywhere, so it can be a surprise what files cargo publish actually includes in the crate.

This is especially bad since cargo publish is irreversible.

[weihanglo]

AFAIK there is no default value for package.include and package.exclude add a .* rule under some circumstances. There is a document about cargo package respecting gitignore but it's not very detailed. Maybe we can add more information into the manifest chapter instead.

Also, if you're in trouble with cargo publish inclusion rules, providing a reproducible example would help a lot 😀

[malaire]

So by default cargo publish includes everything not ignored by version control system?

[weihanglo]

I think so. At least for a package under git-control and without package.include.

[malaire]

Documentation is contradictory about that:

https://doc.rust-lang.org/cargo/reference/publishing.html#packaging-a-crate

Cargo will automatically ignore files ignored by your version control system when packaging

That implies that both .gitignore and .git/info/exclude are used.

https://doc.rust-lang.org/cargo/reference/manifest.html#the-exclude-and-include-fields

If git is being used for a package, the exclude field will be seeded with the gitignore settings from the repository.

That says that only .gitignore is used and .git/info/exclude is not used.

So is .git/info/exclude used or not?

[weihanglo]

First time knows .git/info/exclud. Cool stuff!

After some quick testing, I found that, unfortunately, cargo publish only support .gitignore, which means it is not fully git-compliance nor supporting other VCS. One solution is to make the doc aligns to the current implementation, but for now let's wait for cargo team's opinion.

Edit: actually it works and supports git. I typed something wrong in the past.

[ehuss]

I opened PR #9538 to add documentation for this, please let me know if you have any feedback.

After some quick testing, I found that, unfortunately, cargo publish only support .gitignore, which means it is not fully git-compliance nor supporting other VCS.

This should be working, can you put together an example where it doesn't? Did you maybe not have any commits? Or have an include rule? The following works for me:

cargo new foo
cd foo
git add .gitignore Cargo.toml src
git commit -m test
touch bar
cargo package --list --allow-dirty  # Should contain `bar`
echo bar >> .git/info/exclude
cargo package --list --allow-dirty  # Should not contain `bar`

[weihanglo]

It works for me now. I guess I made some mistake days ago. 😞

Sorry about that and thank for your patch PR!