Getting an idea, planning it out, implementing your Rust code, and releasing the final build is a long process full of unexpected issues. Cross-compilation of your code will allow you to reach more users, but it requires knowledge of building executables for different runtime environments. Luckily, this post will help in getting your Rust application running on multiple architectures, including x86 for Windows.

Overview

You want to vet your idea with as many users as possible, so you need to be able to compile your code for multiple architectures. Your users have their own preferences on what machines and OS to use, so we should do our best to meet them in their preferred set-up. This is why it’s critical to pick a language or framework that lends itself to support multiple ways to export your code for multiple target environments with minimal developer effort. Also, it’d be better to have tooling in place to help automate this export process.

If we invest some time in the beginning to pick the right coding language and automation tooling, then we’ll avoid the headaches of not being able to reach a wider audience without the use of cumbersome manual steps. Basically, we need to remove as many barriers as possible between our code and our audience.

This post will cover building a custom Docker image, instantiating a container from that image, and finally using that container to cross-compile your Rust code. Your code will be compiled, and an executable will be created for your target environment within your working directory.

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