http v0.2

A couple years ago, we released the beginning of the http crate. It’s purpose was to allow a common API for the ecosystem to interact with HTTP types, without those types referring to a specific implementation. We’ve seen great things sprout up since then!

Today marks the 0.2 release, a chance to make some minor breaking changes, with the hopes that this 0.2 version can soon just be promoted to 1.0. So, what has changed?

HTTP/3

A seemingly simple change is adding the Version::HTTP_3 constant. However, we couldn’t add it in 0.1 due to an unexpected compiler behavior that allowed exhaustive matching on the Version constants even though the internal enum wasn’t exposed. This time, we’ve made sure to prevent exhaustive matches, so we can add new versions in the future.

Builders are now by-value

There are some pretty useful builders to construct a Request , Response , or Uri . In 0.1, they were “by-reference” builders, meaning that each builder method took &mut self and returned &mut Builder . Now, they take self and return Builder . There’s pros and cons for each pattern, but the weightiest one that made us change was the nature of “consuming” the builder once finished. To “build” a “by-ref” builder requires that either the data inside be cloned, or the builder be left in a “don’t build me again” state. This change now makes it clearer that a builder cannot used again, as it will now be a compiler error.

Reduced public dependencies

To help meet the goal of promoting to http v1.0, we’ve reduced the number of public dependencies to 0. There’s still a way to make use of bytes to reduce copies, but it’s now exposed in a way that there’s no API contract. This allows http to reach 1.0 even if bytes takes longer.

Next