When you're ready to release your Rust project, you can use the `cargo build --release` command to compile it with optimizations. This will make your code run faster, but it will also take longer to compile.
The `cargo build --release` command creates an executable in the `target/release` directory. This directory is separate from the `target/debug` directory, which is where the unoptimized executable is created.
The reason for having two separate directories is that you typically want to use the unoptimized executable for development, and the optimized executable for release. The unoptimized executable is faster to compile, so you can rebuild it more often as you're developing your code. The optimized executable is faster to run, so you want to use it when you're ready to release your code to users.
If you're benchmarking your code's running time, you should be sure to run `cargo build --release` and benchmark with the executable in `target/release`. This will give you the most accurate results.
Benefits of building for release
- Your code will run faster.
- Your code will be smaller.
- Your code will use less memory.
Drawbacks to building for release
- The build time will be longer.
- You may need to debug your code more carefully, as the optimizations can make it more difficult to find errors.
