rustup-help

Display help

$ rustup help

$ rustup help [subcommand]

rustup-help [COMMAND]

COMMAND
    Specifies the rustup subcommand for which to display detailed help information. If omitted, general help for rustup itself is shown.

-h, --help
    Displays help information for the rustup-help command itself, showing its own usage and options.

rustup-help is an internal command that powers the user-facing rustup help utility. Its primary function is to provide on-demand documentation and usage information for the rustup command and its various subcommands. When invoked as rustup help, it displays a general overview of rustup, listing all available subcommands and common options.

By specifying a subcommand, such as rustup help update or rustup help toolchain, rustup-help provides detailed syntax, options, and descriptions specific to that particular subcommand. This makes it an indispensable tool for users to quickly understand rustup's capabilities and how to effectively manage their Rust toolchains, components, and targets directly from the command line.

Users typically interact with rustup-help indirectly via the rustup help command. Directly executing the rustup-help binary (if it's even globally accessible) is not the standard or recommended method.

The content displayed by rustup-help is dynamic and reflects the specific version and configuration of rustup installed on the system, which may differ from online documentation or other versions.

While rustup-help is the underlying executable, users interact with it via rustup help. This command-line pattern is common in toolchain managers where a main executable dispatches to internal helper commands.

Unlike traditional man pages which offer static, comprehensive documentation often installed separately, rustup help provides concise, integrated, and often more up-to-date help directly from the installed rustup binary. It is designed for quick reference within the terminal.

rustup, and consequently its integrated help functionality, emerged from the need for a robust and user-friendly toolchain management system for the Rust programming language. The help subcommand has been a core component of rustup since its inception, evolving alongside the main tool to ensure users can easily discover and understand new features and commands. Its development is part of the larger open-source rustup project, maintained by the Rust community.

rustup(1), rustc(1), cargo(1)