rust-bindgen: Document providing include paths and FAQ for missing system headers

Sometimes there is a cryptic fatal error: 'stddef.h' file not found, presumabely when libclang is incorrectly configured:

https://github.com/servo/gecko-media/issues/71 https://github.com/bsteinb/rsmpi/issues/1 https://github.com/rust-lang-nursery/rust-bindgen/issues/242 https://github.com/ajtulloch/caffe.rs/issues/1

In the past, this issue was fixed by making sure to install the clang package or by finding the missing pathes and adding them to the includes.

I was wondering whether bindgen could work around this issue? (The second solution above can be automated.) Alternatively, it could be documented how to fix it.

About this issue

Original URL
State: open
Created 6 years ago
Reactions: 3
Comments: 17 (5 by maintainers)

Most upvoted comments

Although it may not be rust-bindgen’s problem, but it hurts user experiences of rust-bindgen badly. Hope to find a way to fix it permanently.

BusyJay on Jul 19, 2019

I solved this after RTF(Clang)M. The flag for finding macOS frameworks is -F:

In your build.rs add sth. like:

.clang_arg("-F/Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/SDKs/MacOSX10.15.sdk/System/Library/Frameworks/")

virtualritz on Dec 12, 2019

Each problem is generally different depending on the setup. Could you file a separate issue pointing out which libclang are you using, and the first few lines of running bindgen with RUST_LOG=debug?

emilio on Feb 13, 2019