How to make an item visible in my binary crate targets but not any other crates?

Question

I would like to generate multiple binaries using a lot of the same common code. If I write everything in src/main.rs I can simply mark items at pub(crate) and access the code without exporting it. However if I put the binary in src/bin/foo.rs then I can not find a way to access this without marking everything pub. I would not like to mark everything pub not only because I don't want others to depend on it but also because it renders visibility checking ineffective.

The only workaround I have found is to put the file inside of the src directory then put a simple shim in bin/foo-bar.rs that just calls my_crate::bin_foo_bar::main(). This isn't very tidy and requires a bunch of overhead.

Answer 1

Inside your package you may define a single lib crate and multiple binary crates. If you declare a type inside your library crate as pub(crate) it will obviously unvisible from your binary crates. So revise the definitions. A package is not a crate, it is a package of crates. And pub(crate) types are only visible inside the crate they belong to.