scancode-rust

A high-performance code scanning tool written in Rust that detects licenses, copyrights, and other relevant metadata in source code.

Overview

scancode-rust is designed to be a faster alternative to the Python-based ScanCode Toolkit, aiming to produce compatible output formats while delivering significantly improved performance. This tool currently scans codebases to identify:

• License information
• File metadata
• System information

More ScanCode features coming soon!

Features

• Efficient file scanning with multi-threading
• Compatible output format with ScanCode Toolkit
• Progress indication for large scans
• Configurable scan depth
• File/directory exclusion patterns

Installation

Download Precompiled Binary

You can download the appropriate binary for your platform from the GitHub Releases page. Simply extract the binary and place it in your system's PATH.

Use the Installer Script

Alternatively, you can use the scancode-rust-installer.sh script to automatically download and install the correct binary for your architecture and platform:

curl -sSfL https://github.com/mstykow/scancode-rust/releases/latest/download/scancode-rust-installer.sh | sh

Build from Source

git clone https://github.com/yourusername/scancode-rust.git
cd scancode-rust
./setup.sh  # Initialize the submodule and configure sparse checkout
cargo build --release

The compiled binary will be available at target/release/scancode-rust.

Usage

scancode-rust [OPTIONS] <DIR_PATH> --output-file <OUTPUT_FILE>

Options

Options:
  -o, --output-file <OUTPUT_FILE>    Output JSON file path
  -d, --max-depth <MAX_DEPTH>        Maximum directory depth to scan [default: 50]
  -e, --exclude <EXCLUDE>...         Glob patterns to exclude from scanning
  -h, --help                         Print help
  -V, --version                      Print version

Example

scancode-rust ~/projects/my-codebase -o scan-results.json --exclude "*.git*" "target/*" "node_modules/*"

Performance

scancode-rust is designed to be significantly faster than the Python-based ScanCode Toolkit, especially for large codebases. Performance improvements come from:

• Native Rust implementation
• Efficient parallel processing
• Optimized file handling

Output Format

The tool produces JSON output compatible with ScanCode Toolkit, including:

• Scan headers with timestamp information
• File-level data with license and metadata information
• System environment details

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please feel free to submit a Pull Request.

Setting Up for Local Development

To contribute to scancode-rust, follow these steps to set up the repository for local development:

1. Install Rust
   Ensure you have Rust installed on your system. You can install it using rustup:

   curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://sh.rustup.rs | sh
   

2. Clone the Repository
   Clone the scancode-rust repository to your local machine:

   git clone https://github.com/mstykow/scancode-rust.git
   cd scancode-rust
   

3. Initialize the License Submodule
   Use the following script to initialize the submodule and configure sparse checkout:

   ./setup.sh
   

4. Install Dependencies
   Install the required Rust dependencies using cargo:

   cargo build
   

5. Run Tests
   Run the test suite to ensure everything is working correctly:

   cargo test
   

6. Start Developing
   You can now make changes and test them locally. Use cargo run to execute the tool:

   cargo run -- [OPTIONS] <DIR_PATH>
   

Updating the License Data

If you want to update the embedded license data, simply run the setup.sh script:

./setup.sh

This will reconfigure the sparse checkout and fetch the latest changes. After updating the license data, rebuild the binary:

cargo build --release

This will embed the latest changes from the license-list-data repository into the binary.

License

This project is licensed under the Apache License 2.0.