Rust language is great for creating libraries and drivers which can be consumed by other languages like Python, Ruby or Zig.

Let’s consider following Rust application Cargo.toml:

[package]
name = "rustlib"
version = "0.1.0"
edition = "2021"

[lib]
name = "rust_lib"
crate-type = ["dylib"]

File src/lib.rs:

#[no_mangle]
pub extern "C" fn add(left: usize, right: usize) -> usize {
    left + right
}

The next step is to build the library:

cargo build --release

The output library is stored in ./target/release/librust_lib.so

Python

Invoking the add function from Python is very easy:

import ctypes
lib = ctypes.CDLL("./target/release/librust_lib.so")
lib.add(1,2)

Ruby

In case of Ruby we will need ffi gem.
Installation on OpenSuse:

sudo zypper install ruby3.1-rubygem-ffi

Ruby code:

require 'ffi'

module MyLib
  extend FFI::Library
  ffi_lib './target/release/librust_lib.so'
  attach_function :add, [ :int, :int ], :int
end

puts MyLib.add 1, 2

Zig

Zig will require little bit more stuff. We need to generate C headers from Rust, which then can be loaded to Zig. Install cbindgen for the conversion:

cargo install cbindgen

Generate header file from the library.

cbindgen --lang c --output rustlib.h

Create Zig application in zig2rust:

const std = @import("std");
const rustlib = @cImport(@cInclude("rustlib.h"));

pub fn main() !void {
    const stdout = std.io.getStdOut().writer();
    const result = rustlib.add(1,2);
    try stdout.print("Result is {d}.\n", .{result});
}

Compile Zig application:

zig build-exe zig2rust.zig -I. -l target/release/librust_lib.so

Run the application:

./zig2rust