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Blog post on removing the Clippy plugin interface #435

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Blog post on removing the Clippy plugin interface
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46 changes: 46 additions & 0 deletions posts/inside-rust/2019-10-24-Clippy-removes-plugin-interface.md
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---
layout: post
title: "Clippy is removing its plugin interface"
author: Philipp Krones
description: "Now that compiler plugins are deprecated, Clippy is also removing its plugin interface"
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Suggested change
description: "Now that compiler plugins are deprecated, Clippy is also removing its plugin interface"
description: "Clippy is removing its deprecated plugin interface"

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Hm that is practically the title then.

team: the Dev tools team (Clippy) <https://www.rust-lang.org/governance/teams/dev-tools#clippy>
---

Today we're announcing, that Clippy will completely remove its plugin interface.
Using the plugin interface is deprecated for about one and a half year now
([rust-lang/rust-clippy#2712]) and emits an unsilenceable warning since then.
Now that compiler plugins are officially deprecated ([rust-lang/rust#64675]),
Clippy will remove its support for the plugin interface completely
([rust-lang/rust-clippy#4714]).

[rust-lang/rust-clippy#2712]: https://github.com/rust-lang/rust-clippy/pull/2712
[rust-lang/rust#64675]: https://github.com/rust-lang/rust/pull/64675
[rust-lang/rust-clippy#4714]: https://github.com/rust-lang/rust-clippy/pull/4714

### How do I migrate from the plugin interface?

Since some crates are still using the Clippy plugin interface, we want to
provide a guide on how to migrate to `cargo clippy`.

1. `Cargo.toml`: Remove every occurrence of the `clippy` dependency and the
`clippy` feature.
2. Completely remove every occurrence of `feature(plugin)` and `plugin(clippy)`.
3. Replace every occurrence of `feature = "clippy"` with `feature =
"cargo-clippy"`. The `cargo-clippy` feature is automatically enabled when
running `cargo clippy`.
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I think this would typically be the wrong guidance. People used feature = "clippy" because the canonical lint suppression used to be:

#[cfg(feature = "clippy", allow(name_of_lint))]

The correct migration would be to a tool attr:

#[allow(clippy::name_of_lint)]

There might be remaining use cases for #[cfg(feature = "cargo-clippy")] but it would be extremely unusual, right?

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This is already handled by rustc. Running cargo clippy on

#![cfg_attr(feature = "cargo-clippy", deny(if_not_else))]
// code ...

emits

warning: lint name `if_not_else` is deprecated and may not have an effect in the future. Also `cfg_attr(cargo-clippy)` won't be necessary anymore
 --> src/main.rs:1:44
  |
1 | #![cfg_attr(feature = "cargo-clippy", deny(if_not_else))]
  |                                            ^^^^^^^^^^^ help: change it to: `clippy::if_not_else`
  |
  = note: `#[warn(renamed_and_removed_lints)]` on by default

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Also I wanted to write a clippy lint, that detects cfg_attr(cargo-clippy) and suggests to remove this, but never got to finish this lint.

https://github.com/flip1995/rust-clippy/commits/cfg_attr_lint

4. CI: You now have to install Clippy via rustup, with `rustup component add
clippy`. Once it is installed you can just run `cargo clippy` (for more usage
instructions, see the [Clippy `README`]). Note that Clippy is not included in
every nightly, but you can check its availability on the [rustup components
history] page.

[Clippy `README`]: https://github.com/rust-lang/rust-clippy#usage
[rustup components history]: https://rust-lang.github.io/rustup-components-history/index.html

### Where should I go if I have more questions?

If you need help with migrating from the plugin interface, you can contact us
via [Discord] or open an issue on [GitHub].

[Discord]: https://discord.gg/vNNtpyD
[GitHub]: https://github.com/rust-lang/clippy/issues/new