1611289 - [meta] Experiment with a Rust-based libexpat replacement

Status: ASSIGNED

(Core :: XML, task, P3)

Description

[Eric Rahm [:erahm]]

The folks at Immunant are working on a port libexpat to Rust that would be suitable as a drop-in replacement for our version of expat. The Rust port will go beyond just a C2Rust conversion and intends to implement functionality with idiomatic Rust. Lets use this bug to coordinate efforts to evaluate whether or not we can switch over to the potentially safer version.

First steps:

• Test out builds and tests across our platforms
• Evaluate performance with our perf tests, specifically raptor and talos
• Once the port is closer to being complete we'll also want security review and proper fuzzing

Comment 1

[Stephen Crane]

Just for reference, the work in progress repo for the port is https://github.com/immunant/rexpat. It’s still very early in refactoring, so don’t expect much safe Rust yet, but things are progressing.

Comment 2

[Andrei Homescu]

Attachment: Bug 1611289 - Integrate rexpat

Comment 3

[Andrei Homescu]

Attachment: Bug 1611289 - Remove custom memory allocators from expat parsers

Depends on D62972

Comment 4

[Andrei Homescu]

Attachment: Bug 1611289 - Use git repository as the path for rexpat

Depends on D62973

Comment 5

[Andrei Homescu]

Attachment: Bug 1611289 - Integrate rexpat

• Remove custom memory allocators from expat parsers
• Use git repository as the path for rexpat