Cargo.lock file should contain a comment describing what it is

[omertuc]

Cargo's .lock file has a very confusing name, it looks like some sort of locking mechanism to prevent two Cargo instances from modifying the same repo (similar to Git's lock file). I think there should be a comment inside it describing that's it's not a simple lock file, it's automatically generated, and shouldn't be modified/deleted. Maybe that comment should link to some more broad explanation.

I'm kinda new to Rust and at first when I tried to compile my project I saw that Cargo generated a Cargo.lock file. My first instinct was thinking "oh no the last instance of cargo didn't close correctly and didn't delete its .lock file I should probably delete it".

Then after I read some basic Cargo tutorial I saw its actual purpose and that it should even be committed to the VCS for repositories of an executable. That surprised me a lot, it was very counter intuitive, given its name.

What do you think?

[DarkDrek]

Any ideas for the exact text?
Maybe?

This is not a simple lock file, it's automatically generated, and shouldn't be modified! See https://doc.rust-lang.org/cargo/guide/cargo-toml-vs-cargo-lock.html for more information.

[dwijnand]

Ah, an older duplicate of #6180.

This has been resolved with #6548.