% The Rust Guide
Hey there! Welcome to the Rust guide. This is the place to be if you'd like to learn how to program in Rust. Rust is a systems programming language with a focus on "high-level, bare-metal programming": the lowest level control a programming language can give you, but with zero-cost, higher level abstractions, because people aren't computers. We really think Rust is something special, and we hope you do too.
To show you how to get going with Rust, we're going to write the traditional "Hello, World!" program. Next, we'll introduce you to a tool that's useful for writing real-world Rust programs and libraries: "Cargo." After that, we'll talk about the basics of Rust, write a little program to try them out, and then learn more advanced things.
Sound good? Let's go!
The first step to using Rust is to install it! There are a number of ways to
install Rust, but the easiest is to use the rustup script. If you're on
Linux or a Mac, all you need to do is this (note that you don't need to type
in the $s, they just indicate the start of each command):
$ curl -s https://static.rust-lang.org/rustup.sh | sudo sh
(If you're concerned about curl | sudo sh, please keep reading. Disclaimer
below.)
If you're on Windows, please download either the 32-bit installer or the 64-bit installer and run it.
If you decide you don't want Rust anymore, we'll be a bit sad, but that's okay. Not every programming language is great for everyone. Just pass an argument to the script:
$ curl -s https://static.rust-lang.org/rustup.sh | sudo sh -s -- --uninstall
If you used the Windows installer, just re-run the .exe and it will give you
an uninstall option.
You can re-run this script any time you want to update Rust. Which, at this point, is often. Rust is still pre-1.0, and so people assume that you're using a very recent Rust.
This brings me to one other point: some people, and somewhat rightfully so, get
very upset when we tell you to curl | sudo sh. And they should be! Basically,
when you do this, you are trusting that the good people who maintain Rust
aren't going to hack your computer and do bad things. That's a good instinct!
If you're one of those people, please check out the documentation on building
Rust from Source, or
the official binary downloads. And we
promise that this method will not be the way to install Rust forever: it's just
the easiest way to keep people updated while Rust is in its alpha state.
Oh, we should also mention the officially supported platforms:
- Windows (7, 8, Server 2008 R2), x86 only
- Linux (2.6.18 or later, various distributions), x86 and x86-64
- OSX 10.7 (Lion) or greater, x86 and x86-64
We extensively test Rust on these platforms, and a few others, too, like Android. But these are the ones most likely to work, as they have the most testing.
Finally, a comment about Windows. Rust considers Windows to be a first-class platform upon release, but if we're honest, the Windows experience isn't as integrated as the Linux/OS X experience is. We're working on it! If anything does not work, it is a bug. Please let us know if that happens. Each and every commit is tested against Windows just like any other platform.
If you've got Rust installed, you can open up a shell, and type this:
$ rustc --version
You should see some output that looks something like this:
rustc 0.12.0-pre (443a1cd 2014-06-08 14:56:52 -0700)
If you did, Rust has been installed successfully! Congrats!
If not, there are a number of places where you can get help. The easiest is the #rust IRC channel on irc.mozilla.org, which you can access through Mibbit. Click that link, and you'll be chatting with other Rustaceans (a silly nickname we call ourselves), and we can help you out. Other great resources include our mailing list, the /r/rust subreddit, and Stack Overflow.
Now that you have Rust installed, let's write your first Rust program. It's traditional to make your first program in any new language one that prints the text "Hello, world!" to the screen. The nice thing about starting with such a simple program is that you can verify that your compiler isn't just installed, but also working properly. And printing information to the screen is a pretty common thing to do.
The first thing that we need to do is make a file to put our code in. I like
to make a projects directory in my home directory, and keep all my projects
there. Rust does not care where your code lives.
This actually leads to one other concern we should address: this guide will assume that you have basic familiarity with the command line. Rust does not require that you know a whole ton about the command line, but until the language is in a more finished state, IDE support is spotty. Rust makes no specific demands on your editing tooling, or where your code lives.
With that said, let's make a directory in our projects directory.
$ mkdir ~/projects
$ cd ~/projects
$ mkdir hello_world
$ cd hello_world
If you're on Windows and not using PowerShell, the ~ may not work. Consult
the documentation for your shell for more details.
Let's make a new source file next. I'm going to use the syntax editor filename to represent editing a file in these examples, but you should use
whatever method you want. We'll call our file main.rs:
$ editor main.rs
Rust files always end in a .rs extension. If you're using more than one word
in your file name, use an underscore. hello_world.rs rather than
helloworld.rs.
Now that you've got your file open, type this in:
fn main() {
println!("Hello, world!");
}
Save the file, and then type this into your terminal window:
$ rustc main.rs
$ ./main # or main.exe on Windows
Hello, world!
Success! Let's go over what just happened in detail.
fn main() {
}
These lines define a function in Rust. The main function is special:
it's the beginning of every Rust program. The first line says "I'm declaring a
function named main, which takes no arguments and returns nothing." If there
were arguments, they would go inside the parentheses (( and )), and because
we aren't returning anything from this function, we've dropped that notation
entirely. We'll get to it later.
You'll also note that the function is wrapped in curly braces ({ and }).
Rust requires these around all function bodies. It is also considered good
style to put the opening curly brace on the same line as the function
declaration, with one space in between.
Next up is this line:
println!("Hello, world!");
This line does all of the work in our little program. There are a number of details that are important here. The first is that it's indented with four spaces, not tabs. Please configure your editor of choice to insert four spaces with the tab key. We provide some sample configurations for various editors.
The second point is the println!() part. This is calling a Rust macro,
which is how metaprogramming is done in Rust. If it were a function instead, it
would look like this: println(). For our purposes, we don't need to worry
about this difference. Just know that sometimes, you'll see a !, and that
means that you're calling a macro instead of a normal function. One last thing
to mention: Rust's macros are significantly different than C macros, if you've
used those. Don't be scared of using macros. We'll get to the details
eventually, you'll just have to trust us for now.
Next, "Hello, world!" is a string. Strings are a surprisingly complicated
topic in a systems programming language, and this is a statically allocated
string. We will talk more about different kinds of allocation later. We pass
this string as an argument to println!, which prints the string to the
screen. Easy enough!
Finally, the line ends with a semicolon (;). Rust is an expression
oriented language, which means that most things are expressions. The ; is
used to indicate that this expression is over, and the next one is ready to
begin. Most lines of Rust code end with a ;. We will cover this in-depth
later in the guide.
Finally, actually compiling and running our program. We can compile
with our compiler, rustc, by passing it the name of our source file:
$ rustc main.rs
This is similar to gcc or clang, if you come from a C or C++ background. Rust
will output a binary executable. You can see it with ls:
$ ls
main main.rs
Or on Windows:
$ dir
main.exe main.rs
There are now two files: our source code, with the .rs extension, and the
executable (main.exe on Windows, main everywhere else)
$ ./main # or main.exe on Windows
This prints out our Hello, world! text to our terminal.
If you come from a dynamically typed language like Ruby, Python, or JavaScript,
you may not be used to these two steps being separate. Rust is an
ahead-of-time compiled language, which means that you can compile a
program, give it to someone else, and they don't need to have Rust installed.
If you give someone a .rb or .py or .js file, they need to have
Ruby/Python/JavaScript installed, but you just need one command to both compile
and run your program. Everything is a tradeoff in language design, and Rust has
made its choice.
Congratulations! You have officially written a Rust program. That makes you a Rust programmer! Welcome.
Next, I'd like to introduce you to another tool, Cargo, which is used to write
real-world Rust programs. Just using rustc is nice for simple things, but as
your project grows, you'll want something to help you manage all of the options
that it has, and to make it easy to share your code with other people and
projects.
Cargo is a tool that Rustaceans use to help manage their Rust projects. Cargo is currently in an alpha state, just like Rust, and so it is still a work in progress. However, it is already good enough to use for many Rust projects, and so it is assumed that Rust projects will use Cargo from the beginning.
Cargo manages three things: building your code, downloading the dependencies your code needs, and building the dependencies your code needs. At first, your program doesn't have any dependencies, so we'll only be using the first part of its functionality. Eventually, we'll add more. Since we started off by using Cargo, it'll be easy to add later.
Let's convert Hello World to Cargo. The first thing we need to do to begin using Cargo is to install Cargo. Luckily for us, the script we ran to install Rust includes Cargo by default. If you installed Rust some other way, you may want to check the Cargo README for specific instructions about installing it.
To Cargo-ify our project, we need to do two things: Make a Cargo.toml
configuration file, and put our source file in the right place. Let's
do that part first:
$ mkdir src
$ mv main.rs src/main.rs
Cargo expects your source files to live inside a src directory. That leaves
the top level for other things, like READMEs, license information, and anything
not related to your code. Cargo helps us keep our projects nice and tidy. A
place for everything, and everything in its place.
Next, our configuration file:
$ editor Cargo.toml
Make sure to get this name right: you need the capital C!
Put this inside:
[package]
name = "hello_world"
version = "0.0.1"
authors = [ "Your name <you@example.com>" ]
[[bin]]
name = "hello_world"
This file is in the TOML format. Let's let it explain itself to you:
TOML aims to be a minimal configuration file format that's easy to read due to obvious semantics. TOML is designed to map unambiguously to a hash table. TOML should be easy to parse into data structures in a wide variety of languages.
TOML is very similar to INI, but with some extra goodies.
Anyway, there are two tables in this file: package and bin. The first
tells Cargo metadata about your package. The second tells Cargo that we're
interested in building a binary, not a library (though we could do both!), as
well as what it is named.
Once you have this file in place, we should be ready to build! Try this:
$ cargo build
Compiling hello_world v0.0.1 (file:///home/yourname/projects/hello_world)
$ ./target/hello_world
Hello, world!
Bam! We build our project with cargo build, and run it with
./target/hello_world. This hasn't bought us a whole lot over our simple use
of rustc, but think about the future: when our project has more than one
file, we would need to call rustc twice, and pass it a bunch of options to
tell it to build everything together. With Cargo, as our project grows, we can
just cargo build and it'll work the right way.
You'll also notice that Cargo has created a new file: Cargo.lock.
[root]
name = "hello_world"
version = "0.0.1"
This file is used by Cargo to keep track of dependencies in your application. Right now, we don't have any, so it's a bit sparse. You won't ever need to touch this file yourself, just let Cargo handle it.
That's it! We've successfully built hello_world with Cargo. Even though our
program is simple, it's using much of the real tooling that you'll use for the
rest of your Rust career.
Now that you've got the tools down, let's actually learn more about the Rust language itself. These are the basics that will serve you well through the rest of your time with Rust.
The first thing we'll learn about are 'variable bindings.' They look like this:
let x = 5i;
In many languages, this is called a 'variable.' But Rust's variable bindings
have a few tricks up their sleeves. Rust has a very powerful feature called
'pattern matching' that we'll get into detail with later, but the left
hand side of a let expression is a full pattern, not just a variable name.
This means we can do things like:
let (x, y) = (1i, 2i);
After this expression is evaluated, x will be one, and y will be two.
Patterns are really powerful, but this is about all we can do with them so far.
So let's just keep this in the back of our minds as we go forward.
By the way, in these examples, i indicates that the number is an integer.
Rust is a statically typed language, which means that we specify our types up front. So why does our first example compile? Well, Rust has this thing called "type inference." If it can figure out what the type of something is, Rust doesn't require you to actually type it out.
We can add the type if we want to, though. Types come after a colon (:):
let x: int = 5;
If I asked you to read this out loud to the rest of the class, you'd say "x
is a binding with the type int and the value five."
By default, bindings are immutable. This code will not compile:
let x = 5i;
x = 10i;
It will give you this error:
error: re-assignment of immutable variable `x`
x = 10i;
^~~~~~~
If you want a binding to be mutable, you can use mut:
let mut x = 5i;
x = 10i;
There is no single reason that bindings are immutable by default, but we can
think about it through one of Rust's primary focuses: safety. If you forget to
say mut, the compiler will catch it, and let you know that you have mutated
something you may not have cared to mutate. If bindings were mutable by
default, the compiler would not be able to tell you this. If you did intend
mutation, then the solution is quite easy: add mut.
There are other good reasons to avoid mutable state when possible, but they're out of the scope of this guide. In general, you can often avoid explicit mutation, and so it is preferable in Rust. That said, sometimes, mutation is what you need, so it's not verboten.
Let's get back to bindings. Rust variable bindings have one more aspect that differs from other languages: bindings are required to be initialized with a value before you're allowed to use them. If we try...
let x;
...we'll get an error:
src/main.rs:2:9: 2:10 error: cannot determine a type for this local variable: unconstrained type
src/main.rs:2 let x;
^
Giving it a type will compile, though:
let x: int;
Let's try it out. Change your src/main.rs file to look like this:
fn main() {
let x: int;
println!("Hello world!");
}
You can use cargo build on the command line to build it. You'll get a warning,
but it will still print "Hello, world!":
Compiling hello_world v0.0.1 (file:///home/you/projects/hello_world)
src/main.rs:2:9: 2:10 warning: unused variable: `x`, #[warn(unused_variable)] on by default
src/main.rs:2 let x: int;
^
Rust warns us that we never use the variable binding, but since we never use it,
no harm, no foul. Things change if we try to actually use this x, however. Let's
do that. Change your program to look like this:
fn main() {
let x: int;
println!("The value of x is: {}", x);
}
And try to build it. You'll get an error:
$ cargo build
Compiling hello_world v0.0.1 (file:///home/you/projects/hello_world)
src/main.rs:4:39: 4:40 error: use of possibly uninitialized variable: `x`
src/main.rs:4 println!("The value of x is: {}", x);
^
note: in expansion of format_args!
<std macros>:2:23: 2:77 note: expansion site
<std macros>:1:1: 3:2 note: in expansion of println!
src/main.rs:4:5: 4:42 note: expansion site
error: aborting due to previous error
Could not compile `hello_world`.
Rust will not let us use a value that has not been initialized. Next, let's
talk about this stuff we've added to println!.
If you include two curly braces ({}, some call them moustaches...) in your
string to print, Rust will interpret this as a request to interpolate some sort
of value. String interpolation is a computer science term that means "stick
in the middle of a string." We add a comma, and then x, to indicate that we
want x to be the value we're interpolating. The comma is used to separate
arguments we pass to functions and macros, if you're passing more than one.
When you just use the curly braces, Rust will attempt to display the value in a meaningful way by checking out its type. If you want to specify the format in a more detailed manner, there are a wide number of options available. For now, we'll just stick to the default: integers aren't very complicated to print.
Rust's take on if is not particularly complex, but it's much more like the
if you'll find in a dynamically typed language than in a more traditional
systems language. So let's talk about it, to make sure you grasp the nuances.
if is a specific form of a more general concept, the 'branch.' The name comes
from a branch in a tree: a decision point, where depending on a choice,
multiple paths can be taken.
In the case of if, there is one choice that leads down two paths:
let x = 5i;
if x == 5i {
println!("x is five!");
}If we changed the value of x to something else, this line would not print.
More specifically, if the expression after the if evaluates to true, then
the block is executed. If it's false, then it is not.
If you want something to happen in the false case, use an else:
let x = 5i;
if x == 5i {
println!("x is five!");
} else {
println!("x is not five :(");
}
This is all pretty standard. However, you can also do this:
let x = 5i;
let y = if x == 5i {
10i
} else {
15i
};
Which we can (and probably should) write like this:
let x = 5i;
let y = if x == 5i { 10i } else { 15i };
This reveals two interesting things about Rust: it is an expression-based language, and semicolons are different than in other 'curly brace and semicolon'-based languages. These two things are related.
Rust is primarily an expression based language. There are only two kinds of statements, and everything else is an expression.
So what's the difference? Expressions return a value, and statements do not.
In many languages, if is a statement, and therefore, let x = if ... would
make no sense. But in Rust, if is an expression, which means that it returns
a value. We can then use this value to initialize the binding.
Speaking of which, bindings are a kind of the first of Rust's two statements.
The proper name is a declaration statement. So far, let is the only kind
of declaration statement we've seen. Let's talk about that some more.
In some languages, variable bindings can be written as expressions, not just statements. Like Ruby:
x = y = 5
In Rust, however, using let to introduce a binding is not an expression. The
following will produce a compile-time error:
let x = (let y = 5i); // expected identifier, found keyword `let`
The compiler is telling us here that it was expecting to see the beginning of
an expression, and a let can only begin a statement, not an expression.
Note that assigning to an already-bound variable (e.g. y = 5i) is still an
expression, although its value is not particularly useful. Unlike C, where an
assignment evaluates to the assigned value (e.g. 5i in the previous example),
in Rust the value of an assignment is the unit type () (which we'll cover later).
The second kind of statement in Rust is the expression statement. Its purpose is to turn any expression into a statement. In practical terms, Rust's grammar expects statements to follow other statements. This means that you use semicolons to separate expressions from each other. This means that Rust looks a lot like most other languages that require you to use semicolons at the end of every line, and you will see semicolons at the end of almost every line of Rust code you see.
What is this exception that makes us say 'almost?' You saw it already, in this code:
let x = 5i;
let y: int = if x == 5i { 10i } else { 15i };
Note that I've added the type annotation to y, to specify explicitly that I
want y to be an integer.
This is not the same as this, which won't compile:
let x = 5i;
let y: int = if x == 5i { 10i; } else { 15i; };
Note the semicolons after the 10 and 15. Rust will give us the following error:
error: mismatched types: expected `int` but found `()` (expected int but found ())
We expected an integer, but we got (). () is pronounced 'unit', and is a
special type in Rust's type system. () is different than null in other
languages, because () is distinct from other types. For example, in C, null
is a valid value for a variable of type int. In Rust, () is not a valid
value for a variable of type int. It's only a valid value for variables of
the type (), which aren't very useful. Remember how we said statements don't
return a value? Well, that's the purpose of unit in this case. The semicolon
turns any expression into a statement by throwing away its value and returning
unit instead.
There's one more time in which you won't see a semicolon at the end of a line of Rust code. For that, we'll need our next concept: functions.
You've already seen one function so far, the main function:
fn main() {
}
This is the simplest possible function declaration. As we mentioned before,
fn says 'this is a function,' followed by the name, some parenthesis because
this function takes no arguments, and then some curly braces to indicate the
body. Here's a function named foo:
fn foo() {
}
So, what about taking arguments? Here's a function that prints a number:
fn print_number(x: int) {
println!("x is: {}", x);
}
Here's a complete program that uses print_number:
fn main() {
print_number(5);
}
fn print_number(x: int) {
println!("x is: {}", x);
}
As you can see, function arguments work very similar to let declarations:
you add a type to the argument name, after a colon.
Here's a complete program that adds two numbers together and prints them:
fn main() {
print_sum(5, 6);
}
fn print_sum(x: int, y: int) {
println!("sum is: {}", x + y);
}
You separate arguments with a comma, both when you call the function, as well as when you declare it.
Unlike let, you must declare the types of function arguments. This does
not work:
fn print_number(x, y) {
println!("x is: {}", x + y);
}
You get this error:
hello.rs:5:18: 5:19 error: expected `:` but found `,`
hello.rs:5 fn print_number(x, y) {
This is a deliberate design decision. While full-program inference is possible, languages which have it, like Haskell, often suggest that documenting your types explicitly is a best-practice. We agree that forcing functions to declare types while allowing for inference inside of function bodies is a wonderful sweet spot between full inference and no inference.
What about returning a value? Here's a function that adds one to an integer:
fn add_one(x: int) -> int {
x + 1
}
Rust functions return exactly one value, and you declare the type after an
'arrow', which is a dash (-) followed by a greater-than sign (>).
You'll note the lack of a semicolon here. If we added it in:
fn add_one(x: int) -> int {
x + 1;
}
We would get an error:
error: not all control paths return a value
fn add_one(x: int) -> int {
x + 1;
}
note: consider removing this semicolon:
x + 1;
^
Remember our earlier discussions about semicolons and ()? Our function claims
to return an int, but with a semicolon, it would return () instead. Rust
realizes this probably isn't what we want, and suggests removing the semicolon.
This is very much like our if statement before: the result of the block
({}) is the value of the expression. Other expression-oriented languages,
such as Ruby, work like this, but it's a bit unusual in the systems programming
world. When people first learn about this, they usually assume that it
introduces bugs. But because Rust's type system is so strong, and because unit
is its own unique type, we have never seen an issue where adding or removing a
semicolon in a return position would cause a bug.
But what about early returns? Rust does have a keyword for that, return:
fn foo(x: int) -> int {
if x < 5 { return x; }
x + 1
}
Using a return as the last line of a function works, but is considered poor
style:
fn foo(x: int) -> int {
if x < 5 { return x; }
return x + 1;
}
There are some additional ways to define functions, but they involve features that we haven't learned about yet, so let's just leave it at that for now.
Now that we have some functions, it's a good idea to learn about comments. Comments are notes that you leave to other programmers to help explain things about your code. The compiler mostly ignores them.
Rust has two kinds of comments that you should care about: line comments and doc comments.
// Line comments are anything after '//' and extend to the end of the line.
let x = 5i; // this is also a line comment.
// If you have a long explanation for something, you can put line comments next
// to each other. Put a space between the // and your comment so that it's
// more readable.
The other kind of comment is a doc comment. Doc comments use /// instead of
//, and support Markdown notation inside:
/// `hello` is a function that prints a greeting that is personalized based on
/// the name given.
///
/// # Arguments
///
/// * `name` - The name of the person you'd like to greet.
///
/// # Example
///
/// ```rust
/// let name = "Steve";
/// hello(name); // prints "Hello, Steve!"
/// ```
fn hello(name: &str) {
println!("Hello, {}!", name);
}
When writing doc comments, adding sections for any arguments, return values, and providing some examples of usage is very, very helpful.
You can use the rustdoc tool to generate HTML documentation from these doc
comments. We will talk more about rustdoc when we get to modules, as
generally, you want to export documentation for a full module.
Rust, like many programming languages, has a number of different data types that are built-in. You've already done some simple work with integers and strings, but next, let's talk about some more complicated ways of storing data.
The first compound data type we're going to talk about are called tuples. Tuples are an ordered list of a fixed size. Like this:
let x = (1i, "hello");The parenthesis and commas form this two-length tuple. Here's the same code, but with the type annotated:
let x: (int, &str) = (1, "hello");As you can see, the type of a tuple looks just like the tuple, but with each
position having a type name rather than the value. Careful readers will also
note that tuples are heterogeneous: we have an int and a &str in this tuple.
You haven't seen &str as a type before, and we'll discuss the details of
strings later. In systems programming languages, strings are a bit more complex
than in other languages. For now, just read &str as "a string slice," and
we'll learn more soon.
You can access the fields in a tuple through a destructuring let. Here's an example:
let (x, y, z) = (1i, 2i, 3i);
println!("x is {}", x);Remember before when I said the left hand side of a let statement was more
powerful than just assigning a binding? Here we are. We can put a pattern on
the left hand side of the let, and if it matches up to the right hand side,
we can assign multiple bindings at once. In this case, let 'destructures,'
or 'breaks up,' the tuple, and assigns the bits to three bindings.
This pattern is very powerful, and we'll see it repeated more later.
The last thing to say about tuples is that they are only equivalent if the arity, types, and values are all identical.
let x = (1i, 2i, 3i);
let y = (2i, 3i, 4i);
if x == y {
println!("yes");
} else {
println!("no");
}This will print no, as the values aren't equal.
One other use of tuples is to return multiple values from a function:
fn next_two(x: int) -> (int, int) { (x + 1i, x + 2i) }
fn main() {
let (x, y) = next_two(5i);
println!("x, y = {}, {}", x, y);
}Even though Rust functions can only return one value, a tuple is one value, that happens to be made up of two. You can also see in this example how you can destructure a pattern returned by a function, as well.
Tuples are a very simple data structure, and so are not often what you want. Let's move on to their bigger sibling, structs.
A struct is another form of a 'record type,' just like a tuple. There's a difference: structs give each element that they contain a name, called a 'field' or a 'member.' Check it out:
struct Point {
x: int,
y: int,
}
fn main() {
let origin = Point { x: 0i, y: 0i };
println!("The origin is at ({}, {})", origin.x, origin.y);
}There's a lot going on here, so let's break it down. We declare a struct with
the struct keyword, and then with a name. By convention, structs begin with a
capital letter and are also camel cased: PointInSpace, not Point_In_Space.
We can create an instance of our struct via let, as usual, but we use a key: value style syntax to set each field. The order doesn't need to be the same as
in the original declaration.
Finally, because fields have names, we can access the field through dot
notation: origin.x.
The values in structs are immutable, like other bindings in Rust. However, you
can use mut to make them mutable:
struct Point {
x: int,
y: int,
}
fn main() {
let mut point = Point { x: 0i, y: 0i };
point.x = 5;
println!("The point is at ({}, {})", point.x, point.y);
}
This will print The point is at (5, 0).
Rust has another data type that's like a hybrid between a tuple and a struct, called a tuple struct. Tuple structs do have a name, but their fields don't:
struct Color(int, int, int);
struct Point(int, int, int);
These two will not be equal, even if they have the same values:
let black = Color(0, 0, 0);
let origin = Point(0, 0, 0);
It is almost always better to use a struct than a tuple struct. We would write
Color and Point like this instead:
struct Color {
red: int,
blue: int,
green: int,
}
struct Point {
x: int,
y: int,
z: int,
}
Now, we have actual names, rather than positions. Good names are important, and with a struct, we have actual names.
There is one case when a tuple struct is very useful, though, and that's a tuple struct with only one element. We call this a 'newtype,' because it lets you create a new type that's a synonym for another one:
struct Inches(int);
let length = Inches(10);
let Inches(integer_length) = length;
println!("length is {} inches", integer_length);
As you can see here, you can extract the inner integer type through a
destructuring let.
Finally, Rust has a "sum type", an enum. Enums are an incredibly useful feature of Rust, and are used throughout the standard library. This is an enum that is provided by the Rust standard library:
enum Ordering {
Less,
Equal,
Greater,
}
An Ordering can only be one of Less, Equal, or Greater at any given
time. Here's an example:
fn cmp(a: int, b: int) -> Ordering {
if a < b { Less }
else if a > b { Greater }
else { Equal }
}
fn main() {
let x = 5i;
let y = 10i;
let ordering = cmp(x, y);
if ordering == Less {
println!("less");
} else if ordering == Greater {
println!("greater");
} else if ordering == Equal {
println!("equal");
}
}
cmp is a function that compares two things, and returns an Ordering. We
return either Less, Greater, or Equal, depending on if the two values
are greater, less, or equal.
The ordering variable has the type Ordering, and so contains one of the
three values. We can then do a bunch of if/else comparisons to check
which one it is.
However, repeated if/else comparisons get quite tedious. Rust has a feature
that not only makes them nicer to read, but also makes sure that you never
miss a case. Before we get to that, though, let's talk about another kind of
enum: one with values.
This enum has two variants, one of which has a value:
enum OptionalInt {
Value(int),
Missing,
}
fn main() {
let x = Value(5);
let y = Missing;
match x {
Value(n) => println!("x is {:d}", n),
Missing => println!("x is missing!"),
}
match y {
Value(n) => println!("y is {:d}", n),
Missing => println!("y is missing!"),
}
}
This enum represents an int that we may or may not have. In the Missing
case, we have no value, but in the Value case, we do. This enum is specific
to ints, though. We can make it usable by any type, but we haven't quite
gotten there yet!
You can have any number of values in an enum:
enum OptionalColor {
Color(int, int, int),
Missing
}
Enums with values are quite useful, but as I mentioned, they're even more
useful when they're generic across types. But before we get to generics, let's
talk about how to fix this big if/else statements we've been writing. We'll
do that with match.
Often, a simple if/else isn't enough, because you have more than two
possible options. And else conditions can get incredibly complicated. So
what's the solution?
Rust has a keyword, match, that allows you to replace complicated if/else
groupings with something more powerful. Check it out:
let x = 5i;
match x {
1 => println!("one"),
2 => println!("two"),
3 => println!("three"),
4 => println!("four"),
5 => println!("five"),
_ => println!("something else"),
}
match takes an expression, and then branches based on its value. Each 'arm' of
the branch is of the form val => expression. When the value matches, that arm's
expression will be evaluated. It's called match because of the term 'pattern
matching,' which match is an implementation of.
So what's the big advantage here? Well, there are a few. First of all, match
does 'exhaustiveness checking.' Do you see that last arm, the one with the
underscore (_)? If we remove that arm, Rust will give us an error:
error: non-exhaustive patterns: `_` not covered
In other words, Rust is trying to tell us we forgot a value. Because x is an
integer, Rust knows that it can have a number of different values. For example,
6i. But without the _, there is no arm that could match, and so Rust refuses
to compile. _ is sort of like a catch-all arm. If none of the other arms match,
the arm with _ will. And since we have this catch-all arm, we now have an arm
for every possible value of x, and so our program will now compile.
match statements also destructure enums, as well. Remember this code from the
section on enums?
fn cmp(a: int, b: int) -> Ordering {
if a < b { Less }
else if a > b { Greater }
else { Equal }
}
fn main() {
let x = 5i;
let y = 10i;
let ordering = cmp(x, y);
if ordering == Less {
println!("less");
} else if ordering == Greater {
println!("greater");
} else if ordering == Equal {
println!("equal");
}
}
We can re-write this as a match:
fn cmp(a: int, b: int) -> Ordering {
if a < b { Less }
else if a > b { Greater }
else { Equal }
}
fn main() {
let x = 5i;
let y = 10i;
match cmp(x, y) {
Less => println!("less"),
Greater => println!("greater"),
Equal => println!("equal"),
}
}
This version has way less noise, and it also checks exhaustively to make sure
that we have covered all possible variants of Ordering. With our if/else
version, if we had forgotten the Greater case, for example, our program would
have happily compiled. If we forget in the match, it will not. Rust helps us
make sure to cover all of our bases.
match is also an expression, which means we can use it on the right hand side
of a let binding. We could also implement the previous line like this:
fn cmp(a: int, b: int) -> Ordering {
if a < b { Less }
else if a > b { Greater }
else { Equal }
}
fn main() {
let x = 5i;
let y = 10i;
let result = match cmp(x, y) {
Less => "less",
Greater => "greater",
Equal => "equal",
};
println!("{}", result);
}
In this case, it doesn't make a lot of sense, as we are just making a temporary string where we don't need to, but sometimes, it's a nice pattern.
Looping is the last basic construct that we haven't learned yet in Rust. Rust has
two main looping constructs: for and while.
The for loop is used to loop a particular number of times. Rust's for loops
work a bit differently than in other systems languages, however. Rust's for
loop doesn't look like this "C style" for loop:
for (x = 0; x < 10; x++) {
printf( "%d\n", x );
}
Instead, it looks like this:
for x in range(0i, 10i) {
println!("{:d}", x);
}
In slightly more abstract terms,
for var in expression {
code
}
The expression is an iterator, which we will discuss in more depth later in the
guide. The iterator gives back a series of elements. Each element is one
iteration of the loop. That value is then bound to the name var, which is
valid for the loop body. Once the body is over, the next value is fetched from
the iterator, and we loop another time. When there are no more values, the
for loop is over.
In our example, range is a function that takes a start and an end position,
and gives an iterator over those values. The upper bound is exclusive, though,
so our loop will print 0 through 9, not 10.
Rust does not have the "C style" for loop on purpose. Manually controlling
each element of the loop is complicated and error prone, even for experienced C
developers.
We'll talk more about for when we cover iterators, later in the Guide.
The other kind of looping construct in Rust is the while loop. It looks like
this:
let mut x = 5u;
let mut done = false;
while !done {
x += x - 3;
println!("{}", x);
if x % 5 == 0 { done = true; }
}
while loops are the correct choice when you're not sure how many times
you need to loop.
If you need an infinite loop, you may be tempted to write this:
while true {
Rust has a dedicated keyword, loop, to handle this case:
loop {
Rust's control-flow analysis treats this construct differently than a
while true, since we know that it will always loop. The details of what
that means aren't super important to understand at this stage, but in
general, the more information we can give to the compiler, the better it
can do with safety and code generation. So you should always prefer
loop when you plan to loop infinitely.
Let's take a look at that while loop we had earlier:
let mut x = 5u;
let mut done = false;
while !done {
x += x - 3;
println!("{}", x);
if x % 5 == 0 { done = true; }
}
We had to keep a dedicated mut boolean variable binding, done, to know
when we should skip out of the loop. Rust has two keywords to help us with
modifying iteration: break and continue.
In this case, we can write the loop in a better way with break:
let mut x = 5u;
loop {
x += x - 3;
println!("{}", x);
if x % 5 == 0 { break; }
}
We now loop forever with loop, and use break to break out early.
continue is similar, but instead of ending the loop, goes to the next
iteration: This will only print the odd numbers:
for x in range(0i, 10i) {
if x % 2 == 0 { continue; }
println!("{:d}", x);
}
Both continue and break are valid in both kinds of loops.
Strings are an important concept for any programmer to master. Rust's string handling system is a bit different than in other languages, due to its systems focus. Any time you have a data structure of variable size, things can get tricky, and strings are a re-sizable data structure. That said, Rust's strings also work differently than in some other systems languages, such as C.
Let's dig into the details. A string is a sequence of unicode scalar values encoded as a stream of UTF-8 bytes. All strings are guaranteed to be validly-encoded UTF-8 sequences. Additionally, strings are not null-terminated and can contain null bytes.
Rust has two main types of strings: &str and String.
The first kind is a &str. This is pronounced a 'string slice.' String literals
are of the type &str:
let string = "Hello there.";
This string is statically allocated, meaning that it's saved inside our
compiled program, and exists for the entire duration it runs. The string
binding is a reference to this statically allocated string. String slices
have a fixed size, and cannot be mutated.
A String, on the other hand, is an in-memory string. This string is
growable, and is also guaranteed to be UTF-8.
let mut s = "Hello".to_string();
println!("{}", s);
s.push_str(", world.");
println!("{}", s);
You can coerce a String into a &str with the as_slice() method:
fn takes_slice(slice: &str) {
println!("Got: {}", slice);
}
fn main() {
let s = "Hello".to_string();
takes_slice(s.as_slice());
}
To compare a String to a constant string, prefer as_slice()...
fn compare(string: String) {
if string.as_slice() == "Hello" {
println!("yes");
}
}
... over to_string():
fn compare(string: String) {
if string == "Hello".to_string() {
println!("yes");
}
}
Converting a String to a &str is cheap, but converting the &str to a
String involves allocating memory. No reason to do that unless you have to!
That's the basics of strings in Rust! They're probably a bit more complicated
than you are used to, if you come from a scripting language, but when the
low-level details matter, they really matter. Just remember that Strings
allocate memory and control their data, while &strs are a reference to
another string, and you'll be all set.
Like many programming languages, Rust has a list type for when you want a list
of things. But similar to strings, Rust has different types to represent this
idea: Vec<T> (a 'vector'), [T, .. N] (an 'array'), and &[T] (a 'slice').
Whew!
Vectors are similar to Strings: they have a dynamic length, and they
allocate enough memory to fit. You can create a vector with the vec! macro:
let nums = vec![1i, 2i, 3i];
Notice that unlike the println! macro we've used in the past, we use square
brackets ([]) with vec!. Rust allows you to use either in either situation,
this is just convention.
You can create an array with just square brackets:
let nums = [1i, 2i, 3i];
let nums = [1i, ..20]; // Shorthand for an array of 20 elements all initialized to 1
So what's the difference? An array has a fixed size, so you can't add or subtract elements:
let mut nums = vec![1i, 2i, 3i];
nums.push(4i); // works
let mut nums = [1i, 2i, 3i];
nums.push(4i); // error: type `[int, .. 3]` does not implement any method
// in scope named `push`
The push() method lets you append a value to the end of the vector. But
since arrays have fixed sizes, adding an element doesn't make any sense.
You can see how it has the exact type in the error message: [int, .. 3].
An array of ints, with length 3.
Similar to &str, a slice is a reference to another array. We can get a
slice from a vector by using the as_slice() method:
let vec = vec![1i, 2i, 3i];
let slice = vec.as_slice();
All three types implement an iter() method, which returns an iterator. We'll
talk more about the details of iterators later, but for now, the iter() method
allows you to write a for loop that prints out the contents of a vector, array,
or slice:
let vec = vec![1i, 2i, 3i];
for i in vec.iter() {
println!("{}", i);
}
This code will print each number in order, on its own line.
You can access a particular element of a vector, array, or slice by using subscript notation:
let names = ["Graydon", "Brian", "Niko"];
println!("The second name is: {}", names[1]);
These subscripts start at zero, like in most programming languages, so the
first name is names[0] and the second name is names[1]. The above example
prints The second name is Brian.
There's a whole lot more to vectors, but that's enough to get started. We have now learned all of the most basic Rust concepts. We're ready to start building our guessing game, but we need to know how to do one last thing first: get input from the keyboard. You can't have a guessing game without the ability to guess!
Getting input from the keyboard is pretty easy, but uses some things we haven't seen before. Here's a simple program that reads some input, and then prints it back out:
fn main() {
println!("Type something!");
let input = std::io::stdin().read_line().ok().expect("Failed to read line");
println!("{}", input);
}
Let's go over these chunks, one by one:
std::io::stdin();
This calls a function, stdin(), that lives inside the std::io module. As
you can imagine, everything in std is provided by Rust, the 'standard
library.' We'll talk more about the module system later.
Since writing the fully qualified name all the time is annoying, we can use
the use statement to import it in:
use std::io::stdin;
stdin();
However, it's considered better practice to not import individual functions, but to import the module, and only use one level of qualification:
use std::io;
io::stdin();
Let's update our example to use this style:
use std::io;
fn main() {
println!("Type something!");
let input = io::stdin().read_line().ok().expect("Failed to read line");
println!("{}", input);
}
Next up:
.read_line()
The read_line() method can be called on the result of stdin() to return
a full line of input. Nice and easy.
.ok().expect("Failed to read line");
Do you remember this code?
enum OptionalInt {
Value(int),
Missing,
}
fn main() {
let x = Value(5);
let y = Missing;
match x {
Value(n) => println!("x is {:d}", n),
Missing => println!("x is missing!"),
}
match y {
Value(n) => println!("y is {:d}", n),
Missing => println!("y is missing!"),
}
}
We had to match each time, to see if we had a value or not. In this case,
though, we know that x has a Value. But match forces us to handle
the missing case. This is what we want 99% of the time, but sometimes, we
know better than the compiler.
Likewise, read_line() does not return a line of input. It might return a
line of input. It might also fail to do so. This could happen if our program
isn't running in a terminal, but as part of a cron job, or some other context
where there's no standard input. Because of this, read_line returns a type
very similar to our OptionalInt: an IoResult<T>. We haven't talked about
IoResult<T> yet because it is the generic form of our OptionalInt.
Until then, you can think of it as being the same thing, just for any type, not
just ints.
Rust provides a method on these IoResult<T>s called ok(), which does the
same thing as our match statement, but assuming that we have a valid value.
If we don't, it will terminate our program. In this case, if we can't get
input, our program doesn't work, so we're okay with that. In most cases, we
would want to handle the error case explicitly. The result of ok() has a
method, expect(), which allows us to give an error message if this crash
happens.
We will cover the exact details of how all of this works later in the Guide. For now, this gives you enough of a basic understanding to work with.
Back to the code we were working on! Here's a refresher:
use std::io;
fn main() {
println!("Type something!");
let input = io::stdin().read_line().ok().expect("Failed to read line");
println!("{}", input);
}
With long lines like this, Rust gives you some flexibility with the whitespace. We could write the example like this:
use std::io;
fn main() {
println!("Type something!");
let input = io::stdin()
.read_line()
.ok()
.expect("Failed to read line");
println!("{}", input);
}
Sometimes, this makes things more readable. Sometimes, less. Use your judgment here.
That's all you need to get basic input from the standard input! It's not too complicated, but there are a number of small parts.
Okay! We've got the basics of Rust down. Let's write a bigger program.
For our first project, we'll implement a classic beginner programming problem: the guessing game. Here's how it works: Our program will generate a random integer between one and a hundred. It will then prompt us to enter a guess. Upon entering our guess, it will tell us if we're too low or too high. Once we guess correctly, it will congratulate us, and print the number of guesses we've taken to the screen. Sound good?
Let's set up a new project. Go to your projects directory. Remember how we
had to create our directory structure and a Cargo.toml for hello_world? Cargo
has a command that does that for us. Let's give it a shot:
$ cd ~/projects
$ cargo new guessing_game --bin
$ cd guessing_game
We pass the name of our project to cargo new, and then the --bin flag,
since we're making a binary, rather than a library.
Check out the generated Cargo.toml:
[package]
name = "guessing_game"
version = "0.0.1"
authors = ["Your Name <you@example.com>"]
Cargo gets this information from your environment. If it's not correct, go ahead and fix that.
Finally, Cargo generated a hello, world for us. Check out src/main.rs:
fn main() {
println!("Hello, world!");
}
Let's try compiling what Cargo gave us:
$ cargo build
Compiling guessing_game v0.0.1 (file:///home/you/projects/guessing_game)
Excellent! Open up your src/main.rs again. We'll be writing all of
our code in this file. We'll talk about multiple-file projects later on in the
guide.
Before we move on, let me show you one more Cargo command: run. cargo run
is kind of like cargo build, but it also then runs the produced executable.
Try it out:
$ cargo run
Compiling guessing_game v0.0.1 (file:///home/you/projects/guessing_game)
Running `target/guessing_game`
Hello, world!
Great! The run command comes in handy when you need to rapidly iterate on a project.
Our game is just such a project, we need to quickly test each iteration before moving on to the next one.
Let's get to it! The first thing we need to do for our guessing game is
allow our player to input a guess. Put this in your src/main.rs:
use std::io;
fn main() {
println!("Guess the number!");
println!("Please input your guess.");
let input = io::stdin().read_line()
.ok()
.expect("Failed to read line");
println!("You guessed: {}", input);
}
You've seen this code before, when we talked about standard input. We
import the std::io module with use, and then our main function contains
our program's logic. We print a little message announcing the game, ask the
user to input a guess, get their input, and then print it out.
Because we talked about this in the section on standard I/O, I won't go into more details here. If you need a refresher, go re-read that section.
Next, we need to generate a secret number. To do that, we need to use Rust's random number generation, which we haven't talked about yet. Rust includes a bunch of interesting functions in its standard library. If you need a bit of code, it's possible that it's already been written for you! In this case, we do know that Rust has random number generation, but we don't know how to use it.
Enter the docs. Rust has a page specifically to document the standard library. You can find that page here. There's a lot of information on that page, but the best part is the search bar. Right up at the top, there's a box that you can enter in a search term. The search is pretty primitive right now, but is getting better all the time. If you type 'random' in that box, the page will update to this one. The very first result is a link to std::rand::random. If we click on that result, we'll be taken to its documentation page.
This page shows us a few things: the type signature of the function, some
explanatory text, and then an example. Let's modify our code to add in the
random function:
use std::io;
use std::rand;
fn main() {
println!("Guess the number!");
let secret_number = (rand::random() % 100i) + 1i;
println!("The secret number is: {}", secret_number);
println!("Please input your guess.");
let input = io::stdin().read_line()
.ok()
.expect("Failed to read line");
println!("You guessed: {}", input);
}
The first thing we changed was to use std::rand, as the docs
explained. We then added in a let expression to create a variable binding
named secret_number, and we printed out its result.
Also, you may wonder why we are using % on the result of rand::random().
This operator is called 'modulo', and it returns the remainder of a division.
By taking the modulo of the result of rand::random(), we're limiting the
values to be between 0 and 99. Then, we add one to the result, making it from 1
to 100. Using modulo can give you a very, very small bias in the result, but
for this example, it is not important.
Let's try to compile this using cargo build:
$ cargo build
Compiling guessing_game v0.0.1 (file:///home/you/projects/guessing_game)
src/main.rs:7:26: 7:34 error: the type of this value must be known in this context
src/main.rs:7 let secret_number = (rand::random() % 100i) + 1i;
^~~~~~~~
error: aborting due to previous error
It didn't work! Rust says "the type of this value must be known in this
context." What's up with that? Well, as it turns out, rand::random() can
generate many kinds of random values, not just integers. And in this case, Rust
isn't sure what kind of value random() should generate. So we have to help
it. With number literals, we just add an i onto the end to tell Rust they're
integers, but that does not work with functions. There's a different syntax,
and it looks like this:
rand::random::<int>();
This says "please give me a random int value." We can change our code to use
this hint...
use std::io;
use std::rand;
fn main() {
println!("Guess the number!");
let secret_number = (rand::random::<int>() % 100i) + 1i;
println!("The secret number is: {}", secret_number);
println!("Please input your guess.");
let input = io::stdin().read_line()
.ok()
.expect("Failed to read line");
println!("You guessed: {}", input);
}
Try running our new program a few times:
$ cargo run
Compiling guessing_game v0.0.1 (file:///home/you/projects/guessing_game)
Running `target/guessing_game`
Guess the number!
The secret number is: 7
Please input your guess.
4
You guessed: 4
$ ./target/guessing_game
Guess the number!
The secret number is: 83
Please input your guess.
5
You guessed: 5
$ ./target/guessing_game
Guess the number!
The secret number is: -29
Please input your guess.
42
You guessed: 42
Wait. Negative 29? We wanted a number between one and a hundred! We have two
options here: we can either ask random() to generate an unsigned integer, which
can only be positive, or we can use the abs() function. Let's go with the
unsigned integer approach. If we want a random positive number, we should ask for
a random positive number. Our code looks like this now:
use std::io;
use std::rand;
fn main() {
println!("Guess the number!");
let secret_number = (rand::random::<uint>() % 100u) + 1u;
println!("The secret number is: {}", secret_number);
println!("Please input your guess.");
let input = io::stdin().read_line()
.ok()
.expect("Failed to read line");
println!("You guessed: {}", input);
}
And trying it out:
$ cargo run
Compiling guessing_game v0.0.1 (file:///home/you/projects/guessing_game)
Running `target/guessing_game`
Guess the number!
The secret number is: 57
Please input your guess.
3
You guessed: 3
Great! Next up: let's compare our guess to the secret guess.
If you remember, earlier in the guide, we made a cmp function that compared
two numbers. Let's add that in, along with a match statement to compare the
guess to the secret guess:
use std::io;
use std::rand;
fn main() {
println!("Guess the number!");
let secret_number = (rand::random::<uint>() % 100u) + 1u;
println!("The secret number is: {}", secret_number);
println!("Please input your guess.");
let input = io::stdin().read_line()
.ok()
.expect("Failed to read line");
println!("You guessed: {}", input);
match cmp(input, secret_number) {
Less => println!("Too small!"),
Greater => println!("Too big!"),
Equal => { println!("You win!"); },
}
}
fn cmp(a: int, b: int) -> Ordering {
if a < b { Less }
else if a > b { Greater }
else { Equal }
}
If we try to compile, we'll get some errors:
$ cargo build
Compiling guessing_game v0.0.1 (file:///home/you/projects/guessing_game)
src/main.rs:20:15: 20:20 error: mismatched types: expected `int` but found `collections::string::String` (expected int but found struct collections::string::String)
src/main.rs:20 match cmp(input, secret_number) {
^~~~~
src/main.rs:20:22: 20:35 error: mismatched types: expected `int` but found `uint` (expected int but found uint)
src/main.rs:20 match cmp(input, secret_number) {
^~~~~~~~~~~~~
error: aborting due to 2 previous errors
This often happens when writing Rust programs, and is one of Rust's greatest
strengths. You try out some code, see if it compiles, and Rust tells you that
you've done something wrong. In this case, our cmp function works on integers,
but we've given it unsigned integers. In this case, the fix is easy, because
we wrote the cmp function! Let's change it to take uints:
use std::io;
use std::rand;
fn main() {
println!("Guess the number!");
let secret_number = (rand::random::<uint>() % 100u) + 1u;
println!("The secret number is: {}", secret_number);
println!("Please input your guess.");
let input = io::stdin().read_line()
.ok()
.expect("Failed to read line");
println!("You guessed: {}", input);
match cmp(input, secret_number) {
Less => println!("Too small!"),
Greater => println!("Too big!"),
Equal => { println!("You win!"); },
}
}
fn cmp(a: uint, b: uint) -> Ordering {
if a < b { Less }
else if a > b { Greater }
else { Equal }
}
And try compiling again:
$ cargo build
Compiling guessing_game v0.0.1 (file:///home/you/projects/guessing_game)
src/main.rs:20:15: 20:20 error: mismatched types: expected `uint` but found `collections::string::String` (expected uint but found struct collections::string::String)
src/main.rs:20 match cmp(input, secret_number) {
^~~~~
error: aborting due to previous error
This error is similar to the last one: we expected to get a uint, but we got
a String instead! That's because our input variable is coming from the
standard input, and you can guess anything. Try it:
$ ./target/guessing_game
Guess the number!
The secret number is: 73
Please input your guess.
hello
You guessed: hello
Oops! Also, you'll note that we just ran our program even though it didn't compile. This works because the older version we did successfully compile was still lying around. Gotta be careful!
Anyway, we have a String, but we need a uint. What to do? Well, there's
a function for that:
let input = io::stdin().read_line()
.ok()
.expect("Failed to read line");
let input_num: Option<uint> = from_str(input.as_slice());
The from_str function takes in a &str value and converts it into something.
We tell it what kind of something with a type hint. Remember our type hint with
random()? It looked like this:
rand::random::<uint>();
There's an alternate way of providing a hint too, and that's declaring the type
in a let:
let x: uint = rand::random();
In this case, we say x is a uint explicitly, so Rust is able to properly
tell random() what to generate. In a similar fashion, both of these work:
let input_num = from_str::<uint>("5");
let input_num: Option<uint> = from_str("5");
Anyway, with us now converting our input to a number, our code looks like this:
use std::io;
use std::rand;
fn main() {
println!("Guess the number!");
let secret_number = (rand::random::<uint>() % 100u) + 1u;
println!("The secret number is: {}", secret_number);
println!("Please input your guess.");
let input = io::stdin().read_line()
.ok()
.expect("Failed to read line");
let input_num: Option<uint> = from_str(input.as_slice());
println!("You guessed: {}", input_num);
match cmp(input_num, secret_number) {
Less => println!("Too small!"),
Greater => println!("Too big!"),
Equal => { println!("You win!"); },
}
}
fn cmp(a: uint, b: uint) -> Ordering {
if a < b { Less }
else if a > b { Greater }
else { Equal }
}
Let's try it out!
$ cargo build
Compiling guessing_game v0.0.1 (file:///home/you/projects/guessing_game)
src/main.rs:22:15: 22:24 error: mismatched types: expected `uint` but found `core::option::Option<uint>` (expected uint but found enum core::option::Option)
src/main.rs:22 match cmp(input_num, secret_number) {
^~~~~~~~~
error: aborting due to previous error
Oh yeah! Our input_num has the type Option<uint>, rather than uint. We
need to unwrap the Option. If you remember from before, match is a great way
to do that. Try this code:
use std::io;
use std::rand;
fn main() {
println!("Guess the number!");
let secret_number = (rand::random::<uint>() % 100u) + 1u;
println!("The secret number is: {}", secret_number);
println!("Please input your guess.");
let input = io::stdin().read_line()
.ok()
.expect("Failed to read line");
let input_num: Option<uint> = from_str(input.as_slice());
let num = match input_num {
Some(num) => num,
None => {
println!("Please input a number!");
return;
}
};
println!("You guessed: {}", num);
match cmp(num, secret_number) {
Less => println!("Too small!"),
Greater => println!("Too big!"),
Equal => { println!("You win!"); },
}
}
fn cmp(a: uint, b: uint) -> Ordering {
if a < b { Less }
else if a > b { Greater }
else { Equal }
}
We use a match to either give us the uint inside of the Option, or we
print an error message and return. Let's give this a shot:
$ cargo run
Compiling guessing_game v0.0.1 (file:///home/you/projects/guessing_game)
Running `target/guessing_game`
Guess the number!
The secret number is: 17
Please input your guess.
5
Please input a number!
Uh, what? But we did!
... actually, we didn't. See, when you get a line of input from stdin(),
you get all the input. Including the \n character from you pressing Enter.
So, from_str() sees the string "5\n" and says "nope, that's not a number,
there's non-number stuff in there!" Luckily for us, &strs have an easy
method we can use defined on them: trim(). One small modification, and our
code looks like this:
use std::io;
use std::rand;
fn main() {
println!("Guess the number!");
let secret_number = (rand::random::<uint>() % 100u) + 1u;
println!("The secret number is: {}", secret_number);
println!("Please input your guess.");
let input = io::stdin().read_line()
.ok()
.expect("Failed to read line");
let input_num: Option<uint> = from_str(input.as_slice().trim());
let num = match input_num {
Some(num) => num,
None => {
println!("Please input a number!");
return;
}
};
println!("You guessed: {}", num);
match cmp(num, secret_number) {
Less => println!("Too small!"),
Greater => println!("Too big!"),
Equal => { println!("You win!"); },
}
}
fn cmp(a: uint, b: uint) -> Ordering {
if a < b { Less }
else if a > b { Greater }
else { Equal }
}
Let's try it!
$ cargo run
Compiling guessing_game v0.0.1 (file:///home/you/projects/guessing_game)
Running `target/guessing_game`
Guess the number!
The secret number is: 58
Please input your guess.
76
You guessed: 76
Too big!
Nice! You can see I even added spaces before my guess, and it still figured out that I guessed 76. Run the program a few times, and verify that guessing the number works, as well as guessing a number too small.
The Rust compiler helped us out quite a bit there! This technique is called "lean on the compiler," and it's often useful when working on some code. Let the error messages help guide you towards the correct types.
Now we've got most of the game working, but we can only make one guess. Let's change that by adding loops!
As we already discussed, the loop keyword gives us an infinite loop. So
let's add that in:
use std::io;
use std::rand;
fn main() {
println!("Guess the number!");
let secret_number = (rand::random::<uint>() % 100u) + 1u;
println!("The secret number is: {}", secret_number);
loop {
println!("Please input your guess.");
let input = io::stdin().read_line()
.ok()
.expect("Failed to read line");
let input_num: Option<uint> = from_str(input.as_slice().trim());
let num = match input_num {
Some(num) => num,
None => {
println!("Please input a number!");
return;
}
};
println!("You guessed: {}", num);
match cmp(num, secret_number) {
Less => println!("Too small!"),
Greater => println!("Too big!"),
Equal => { println!("You win!"); },
}
}
}
fn cmp(a: uint, b: uint) -> Ordering {
if a < b { Less }
else if a > b { Greater }
else { Equal }
}
And try it out. But wait, didn't we just add an infinite loop? Yup. Remember
that return? If we give a non-number answer, we'll return and quit. Observe:
$ cargo run
Compiling guessing_game v0.0.1 (file:///home/you/projects/guessing_game)
Running `target/guessing_game`
Guess the number!
The secret number is: 59
Please input your guess.
45
You guessed: 45
Too small!
Please input your guess.
60
You guessed: 60
Too big!
Please input your guess.
59
You guessed: 59
You win!
Please input your guess.
quit
Please input a number!
Ha! quit actually quits. As does any other non-number input. Well, this is
suboptimal to say the least. First, let's actually quit when you win the game:
use std::io;
use std::rand;
fn main() {
println!("Guess the number!");
let secret_number = (rand::random::<uint>() % 100u) + 1u;
println!("The secret number is: {}", secret_number);
loop {
println!("Please input your guess.");
let input = io::stdin().read_line()
.ok()
.expect("Failed to read line");
let input_num: Option<uint> = from_str(input.as_slice().trim());
let num = match input_num {
Some(num) => num,
None => {
println!("Please input a number!");
return;
}
};
println!("You guessed: {}", num);
match cmp(num, secret_number) {
Less => println!("Too small!"),
Greater => println!("Too big!"),
Equal => {
println!("You win!");
return;
},
}
}
}
fn cmp(a: uint, b: uint) -> Ordering {
if a < b { Less }
else if a > b { Greater }
else { Equal }
}
By adding the return line after the You win!, we'll exit the program when
we win. We have just one more tweak to make: when someone inputs a non-number,
we don't want to quit, we just want to ignore it. Change that return to
continue:
use std::io;
use std::rand;
fn main() {
println!("Guess the number!");
let secret_number = (rand::random::<uint>() % 100u) + 1u;
println!("The secret number is: {}", secret_number);
loop {
println!("Please input your guess.");
let input = io::stdin().read_line()
.ok()
.expect("Failed to read line");
let input_num: Option<uint> = from_str(input.as_slice().trim());
let num = match input_num {
Some(num) => num,
None => {
println!("Please input a number!");
continue;
}
};
println!("You guessed: {}", num);
match cmp(num, secret_number) {
Less => println!("Too small!"),
Greater => println!("Too big!"),
Equal => {
println!("You win!");
return;
},
}
}
}
fn cmp(a: uint, b: uint) -> Ordering {
if a < b { Less }
else if a > b { Greater }
else { Equal }
}
Now we should be good! Let's try:
$ cargo run
Compiling guessing_game v0.0.1 (file:///home/you/projects/guessing_game)
Running `target/guessing_game`
Guess the number!
The secret number is: 61
Please input your guess.
10
You guessed: 10
Too small!
Please input your guess.
99
You guessed: 99
Too big!
Please input your guess.
foo
Please input a number!
Please input your guess.
61
You guessed: 61
You win!
Awesome! With one tiny last tweak, we have finished the guessing game. Can you think of what it is? That's right, we don't want to print out the secret number. It was good for testing, but it kind of ruins the game. Here's our final source:
use std::io;
use std::rand;
fn main() {
println!("Guess the number!");
let secret_number = (rand::random::<uint>() % 100u) + 1u;
loop {
println!("Please input your guess.");
let input = io::stdin().read_line()
.ok()
.expect("Failed to read line");
let input_num: Option<uint> = from_str(input.as_slice().trim());
let num = match input_num {
Some(num) => num,
None => {
println!("Please input a number!");
continue;
}
};
println!("You guessed: {}", num);
match cmp(num, secret_number) {
Less => println!("Too small!"),
Greater => println!("Too big!"),
Equal => {
println!("You win!");
return;
},
}
}
}
fn cmp(a: uint, b: uint) -> Ordering {
if a < b { Less }
else if a > b { Greater }
else { Equal }
}
At this point, you have successfully built the Guessing Game! Congratulations!
You've now learned the basic syntax of Rust. All of this is relatively close to various other programming languages you have used in the past. These fundamental syntactical and semantic elements will form the foundation for the rest of your Rust education.
Now that you're an expert at the basics, it's time to learn about some of Rust's more unique features.
Rust features a strong module system, but it works a bit differently than in other programming languages. Rust's module system has two main components: crates, and modules.
A crate is Rust's unit of independent compilation. Rust always compiles one crate at a time, producing either a library or an executable. However, executables usually depend on libraries, and many libraries depend on other libraries as well. To support this, crates can depend on other crates.
Each crate contains a hierarchy of modules. This tree starts off with a single module, called the crate root. Within the crate root, we can declare other modules, which can contain other modules, as deeply as you'd like.
Note that we haven't mentioned anything about files yet. Rust does not impose a particular relationship between your filesystem structure and your module structure. That said, there is a conventional approach to how Rust looks for modules on the file system, but it's also overridable.
Enough talk, let's build something! Let's make a new project called modules.
$ cd ~/projects
$ cargo new modules --bin
Let's double check our work by compiling:
$ cargo run
Compiling modules v0.0.1 (file:///home/you/projects/modules)
Running `target/modules`
Hello, world!
Excellent! So, we already have a single crate here: our src/main.rs is a crate.
Everything in that file is in the crate root. A crate that generates an executable
defines a main function inside its root, as we've done here.
Let's define a new module inside our crate. Edit src/main.rs to look
like this:
fn main() {
println!("Hello, world!");
}
mod hello {
fn print_hello() {
println!("Hello, world!");
}
}
We now have a module named hello inside of our crate root. Modules use
snake_case naming, like functions and variable bindings.
Inside the hello module, we've defined a print_hello function. This will
also print out our hello world message. Modules allow you to split up your
program into nice neat boxes of functionality, grouping common things together,
and keeping different things apart. It's kinda like having a set of shelves:
a place for everything and everything in its place.
To call our print_hello function, we use the double colon (::):
hello::print_hello();
You've seen this before, with io::stdin() and rand::random(). Now you know
how to make your own. However, crates and modules have rules about
visibility, which controls who exactly may use the functions defined in a
given module. By default, everything in a module is private, which means that
it can only be used by other functions in the same module. This will not
compile:
fn main() {
hello::print_hello();
}
mod hello {
fn print_hello() {
println!("Hello, world!");
}
}
It gives an error:
Compiling modules v0.0.1 (file:///home/you/projects/modules)
src/main.rs:2:5: 2:23 error: function `print_hello` is private
src/main.rs:2 hello::print_hello();
^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
To make it public, we use the pub keyword:
fn main() {
hello::print_hello();
}
mod hello {
pub fn print_hello() {
println!("Hello, world!");
}
}
This will work:
$ cargo run
Compiling modules v0.0.1 (file:///home/you/projects/modules)
Running `target/modules`
Hello, world!
Nice! There are more things we can do with modules, including moving them into their own files. This is enough detail for now.
Traditionally, testing has not been a strong suit of most systems programming languages. Rust, however, has very basic testing built into the language itself. While automated testing cannot prove that your code is bug-free, it is useful for verifying that certain behaviors work as intended.
Here's a very basic test:
#[test]
fn is_one_equal_to_one() {
assert_eq!(1i, 1i);
}
You may notice something new: that #[test]. Before we get into the mechanics
of testing, let's talk about attributes.
Rust's testing system uses attributes to mark which functions are tests.
Attributes can be placed on any Rust item. Remember how most things in
Rust are an expression, but let is not? Item declarations are also not
expressions. Here's a list of things that qualify as an item:
- functions
- modules
- type definitions
- structures
- enumerations
- static items
- traits
- implementations
You haven't learned about all of these things yet, but that's the list. As you can see, functions are at the top of it.
Attributes can appear in three ways:
- A single identifier, the attribute name.
#[test]is an example of this. - An identifier followed by an equals sign (
=) and a literal.#[cfg=test]is an example of this. - An identifier followed by a parenthesized list of sub-attribute arguments.
#[cfg(unix, target_word_size = "32")]is an example of this, where one of the sub-arguments is of the second kind.
There are a number of different kinds of attributes, enough that we won't go over them all here. Before we talk about the testing-specific attributes, I want to call out one of the most important kinds of attributes: stability markers.
Rust provides six attributes to indicate the stability level of various parts of your library. The six levels are:
- deprecated: This item should no longer be used. No guarantee of backwards compatibility.
- experimental: This item was only recently introduced or is otherwise in a state of flux. It may change significantly, or even be removed. No guarantee of backwards-compatibility.
- unstable: This item is still under development, but requires more testing to be considered stable. No guarantee of backwards-compatibility.
- stable: This item is considered stable, and will not change significantly. Guarantee of backwards-compatibility.
- frozen: This item is very stable, and is unlikely to change. Guarantee of backwards-compatibility.
- locked: This item will never change unless a serious bug is found. Guarantee of backwards-compatibility.
All of Rust's standard library uses these attribute markers to communicate
their relative stability, and you should use them in your code, as well.
There's an associated attribute, warn, that allows you to warn when you
import an item marked with certain levels: deprecated, experimental and
unstable. For now, only deprecated warns by default, but this will change once
the standard library has been stabilized.
You can use the warn attribute like this:
#![warn(unstable)]
And later, when you import a crate:
extern crate some_crate;
You'll get a warning if you use something marked unstable.
You may have noticed an exclamation point in the warn attribute declaration.
The ! in this attribute means that this attribute applies to the enclosing
item, rather than to the item that follows the attribute. So this warn
attribute declaration applies to the enclosing crate itself, rather than
to whatever item statement follows it:
// applies to the crate we're in
#![warn(unstable)]
extern crate some_crate;
// applies to the following `fn`.
#[test]
fn a_test() {
// ...
}
Let's write a very simple crate in a test-driven manner. You know the drill by now: make a new project:
$ cd ~/projects
$ cargo new testing --bin
$ cd testing
And try it out:
$ cargo run
Compiling testing v0.0.1 (file:///home/you/projects/testing)
Running `target/testing`
Hello, world!
Great. Rust's infrastructure supports tests in two sorts of places, and they're
for two kinds of tests: you include unit tests inside of the crate itself,
and you place integration tests inside a tests directory. "Unit tests"
are small tests that test one focused unit, "integration tests" tests multiple
units in integration. That said, this is a social convention, they're no different
in syntax. Let's make a tests directory:
$ mkdir tests
Next, let's create an integration test in tests/lib.rs:
#[test]
fn foo() {
assert!(false);
}
It doesn't matter what you name your test functions, though it's nice if
you give them descriptive names. You'll see why in a moment. We then use a
macro, assert!, to assert that something is true. In this case, we're giving
it false, so this test should fail. Let's try it!
$ cargo test
Compiling testing v0.0.1 (file:///home/you/projects/testing)
/home/you/projects/testing/src/main.rs:1:1: 3:2 warning: code is never used: `main`, #[warn(dead_code)] on by default
/home/you/projects/testing/src/main.rs:1 fn main() {
/home/you/projects/testing/src/main.rs:2 println!("Hello, world");
/home/you/projects/testing/src/main.rs:3 }
running 0 tests
test result: ok. 0 passed; 0 failed; 0 ignored; 0 measured
running 1 test
test foo ... FAILED
failures:
---- foo stdout ----
task 'foo' failed at 'assertion failed: false', /home/you/projects/testing/tests/lib.rs:3
failures:
foo
test result: FAILED. 0 passed; 1 failed; 0 ignored; 0 measured
task '<main>' failed at 'Some tests failed', /home/you/src/rust/src/libtest/lib.rs:242
Lots of output! Let's break this down:
$ cargo test
Compiling testing v0.0.1 (file:///home/you/projects/testing)
You can run all of your tests with cargo test. This runs both your tests in
tests, as well as the tests you put inside of your crate.
/home/you/projects/testing/src/main.rs:1:1: 3:2 warning: code is never used: `main`, #[warn(dead_code)] on by default
/home/you/projects/testing/src/main.rs:1 fn main() {
/home/you/projects/testing/src/main.rs:2 println!("Hello, world");
/home/you/projects/testing/src/main.rs:3 }
Rust has a lint called 'warn on dead code' used by default. A lint is a
bit of code that checks your code, and can tell you things about it. In this
case, Rust is warning us that we've written some code that's never used: our
main function. Of course, since we're running tests, we don't use main.
We'll turn this lint off for just this function soon. For now, just ignore this
output.
running 0 tests
test result: ok. 0 passed; 0 failed; 0 ignored; 0 measured
Wait a minute, zero tests? Didn't we define one? Yup. This output is from attempting to run the tests in our crate, of which we don't have any. You'll note that Rust reports on several kinds of tests: passed, failed, ignored, and measured. The 'measured' tests refer to benchmark tests, which we'll cover soon enough!
running 1 test
test foo ... FAILED
Now we're getting somewhere. Remember when we talked about naming our tests with good names? This is why. Here, it says 'test foo' because we called our test 'foo.' If we had given it a good name, it'd be more clear which test failed, especially as we accumulate more tests.
failures:
---- foo stdout ----
task 'foo' failed at 'assertion failed: false', /home/you/projects/testing/tests/lib.rs:3
failures:
foo
test result: FAILED. 0 passed; 1 failed; 0 ignored; 0 measured
task '<main>' failed at 'Some tests failed', /home/you/src/rust/src/libtest/lib.rs:242
After all the tests run, Rust will show us any output from our failed tests. In this instance, Rust tells us that our assertion failed, with false. This was what we expected.
Whew! Let's fix our test:
#[test]
fn foo() {
assert!(true);
}
And then try to run our tests again:
$ cargo test
Compiling testing v0.0.1 (file:///home/you/projects/testing)
/home/you/projects/testing/src/main.rs:1:1: 3:2 warning: code is never used: `main`, #[warn(dead_code)] on by default
/home/you/projects/testing/src/main.rs:1 fn main() {
/home/you/projects/testing/src/main.rs:2 println!("Hello, world");
/home/you/projects/testing/src/main.rs:3 }
running 0 tests
test result: ok. 0 passed; 0 failed; 0 ignored; 0 measured
running 1 test
test foo ... ok
test result: ok. 1 passed; 0 failed; 0 ignored; 0 measured
Nice! Our test passes, as we expected. Let's get rid of that warning for our main
function. Change your src/main.rs to look like this:
#[cfg(not(test))]
fn main() {
println!("Hello, world");
}
This attribute combines two things: cfg and not. The cfg attribute allows
you to conditionally compile code based on something. The following item will
only be compiled if the configuration says it's true. And when Cargo compiles
our tests, it sets things up so that cfg(test) is true. But we want to only
include main when it's not true. So we use not to negate things:
cfg(not(test)) will only compile our code when the cfg(test) is false.
With this attribute, we won't get the warning:
$ cargo test
Compiling testing v0.0.1 (file:///home/you/projects/testing)
running 0 tests
test result: ok. 0 passed; 0 failed; 0 ignored; 0 measured
running 1 test
test foo ... ok
test result: ok. 1 passed; 0 failed; 0 ignored; 0 measured
Nice. Okay, let's write a real test now. Change your tests/lib.rs
to look like this:
#[test]
fn math_checks_out() {
let result = add_three_times_four(5i);
assert_eq!(32i, result);
}
And try to run the test:
$ cargo test
Compiling testing v0.0.1 (file:///home/youg/projects/testing)
/home/youg/projects/testing/tests/lib.rs:3:18: 3:38 error: unresolved name `add_three_times_four`.
/home/youg/projects/testing/tests/lib.rs:3 let result = add_three_times_four(5i);
^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
error: aborting due to previous error
Build failed, waiting for other jobs to finish...
Could not compile `testing`.
To learn more, run the command again with --verbose.
Rust can't find this function. That makes sense, as we didn't write it yet!
In order to share this code with our tests, we'll need to make a library crate. This is also just good software design: as we mentioned before, it's a good idea to put most of your functionality into a library crate, and have your executable crate use that library. This allows for code re-use.
To do that, we'll need to make a new module. Make a new file, src/lib.rs,
and put this in it:
# fn main() {}
pub fn add_three_times_four(x: int) -> int {
(x + 3) * 4
}
We're calling this file lib.rs because it has the same name as our project,
and so it's named this, by convention.
We'll then need to use this crate in our src/main.rs:
extern crate testing;
#[cfg(not(test))]
fn main() {
println!("Hello, world");
}
Finally, let's import this function in our tests/lib.rs:
extern crate testing;
use testing::add_three_times_four;
#[test]
fn math_checks_out() {
let result = add_three_times_four(5i);
assert_eq!(32i, result);
}
Let's give it a run:
$ cargo test
Compiling testing v0.0.1 (file:///home/you/projects/testing)
running 0 tests
test result: ok. 0 passed; 0 failed; 0 ignored; 0 measured
running 0 tests
test result: ok. 0 passed; 0 failed; 0 ignored; 0 measured
running 1 test
test math_checks_out ... ok
test result: ok. 1 passed; 0 failed; 0 ignored; 0 measured
Great! One test passed. We've got an integration test showing that our public method works, but maybe we want to test some of the internal logic as well. While this function is simple, if it were more complicated, you can imagine we'd need more tests. So let's break it up into two helper functions, and write some unit tests to test those.
Change your src/lib.rs to look like this:
pub fn add_three_times_four(x: int) -> int {
times_four(add_three(x))
}
fn add_three(x: int) -> int { x + 3 }
fn times_four(x: int) -> int { x * 4 }
If you run cargo test, you should get the same output:
$ cargo test
Compiling testing v0.0.1 (file:///home/you/projects/testing)
running 0 tests
test result: ok. 0 passed; 0 failed; 0 ignored; 0 measured
running 0 tests
test result: ok. 0 passed; 0 failed; 0 ignored; 0 measured
running 1 test
test math_checks_out ... ok
test result: ok. 1 passed; 0 failed; 0 ignored; 0 measured
If we tried to write a test for these two new functions, it wouldn't work. For example:
extern crate testing;
use testing::add_three_times_four;
use testing::add_three;
#[test]
fn math_checks_out() {
let result = add_three_times_four(5i);
assert_eq!(32i, result);
}
#[test]
fn test_add_three() {
let result = add_three(5i);
assert_eq!(8i, result);
}
We'd get this error:
Compiling testing v0.0.1 (file:///home/you/projects/testing)
/home/you/projects/testing/tests/lib.rs:3:5: 3:24 error: function `add_three` is private
/home/you/projects/testing/tests/lib.rs:3 use testing::add_three;
^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Right. It's private. So external, integration tests won't work. We need a
unit test. Open up your src/lib.rs and add this:
pub fn add_three_times_four(x: int) -> int {
times_four(add_three(x))
}
fn add_three(x: int) -> int { x + 3 }
fn times_four(x: int) -> int { x * 4 }
#[cfg(test)]
mod test {
use super::add_three;
use super::times_four;
#[test]
fn test_add_three() {
let result = add_three(5i);
assert_eq!(8i, result);
}
#[test]
fn test_times_four() {
let result = times_four(5i);
assert_eq!(20i, result);
}
}
Let's give it a shot:
$ cargo test
Compiling testing v0.0.1 (file:///home/you/projects/testing)
running 1 test
test test::test_times_four ... ok
test test::test_add_three ... ok
test result: ok. 1 passed; 0 failed; 0 ignored; 0 measured
running 0 tests
test result: ok. 0 passed; 0 failed; 0 ignored; 0 measured
running 1 test
test math_checks_out ... ok
test result: ok. 1 passed; 0 failed; 0 ignored; 0 measured
Cool! We now have two tests of our internal functions. You'll note that there
are three sets of output now: one for src/main.rs, one for src/lib.rs, and
one for tests/lib.rs. There's one interesting thing that we haven't talked
about yet, and that's these lines:
use super::add_three;
use super::times_four;
Because we've made a nested module, we can import functions from the parent
module by using super. Sub-modules are allowed to 'see' private functions in
the parent. We sometimes call this usage of use a 're-export,' because we're
exporting the name again, somewhere else.
We've now covered the basics of testing. Rust's tools are primitive, but they work well in the simple cases. There are some Rustaceans working on building more complicated frameworks on top of all of this, but they're just starting out.
In systems programming, pointers are an incredibly important topic. Rust has a very rich set of pointers, and they operate differently than in many other languages. They are important enough that we have a specific Pointer Guide that goes into pointers in much detail. In fact, while you're currently reading this guide, which covers the language in broad overview, there are a number of other guides that put a specific topic under a microscope. You can find the list of guides on the documentation index page.
In this section, we'll assume that you're familiar with pointers as a general concept. If you aren't, please read the introduction to pointers section of the Pointer Guide, and then come back here. We'll wait.
Got the gist? Great. Let's talk about pointers in Rust.
The most primitive form of pointer in Rust is called a reference.
References are created using the ampersand (&). Here's a simple
reference:
let x = 5i;
let y = &x;
y is a reference to x. To dereference (get the value being referred to
rather than the reference itself) y, we use the asterisk (*):
let x = 5i;
let y = &x;
assert_eq!(5i, *y);
Like any let binding, references are immutable by default.
You can declare that functions take a reference:
fn add_one(x: &int) -> int { *x + 1 }
fn main() {
assert_eq!(6, add_one(&5));
}
As you can see, we can make a reference from a literal by applying & as well.
Of course, in this simple function, there's not a lot of reason to take x by
reference. It's just an example of the syntax.
Because references are immutable, you can have multiple references that alias (point to the same place):
let x = 5i;
let y = &x;
let z = &x;
We can make a mutable reference by using &mut instead of &:
let mut x = 5i;
let y = &mut x;
Note that x must also be mutable. If it isn't, like this:
let x = 5i;
let y = &mut x;
Rust will complain:
6:19 error: cannot borrow immutable local variable `x` as mutable
let y = &mut x;
^
We don't want a mutable reference to immutable data! This error message uses a term we haven't talked about yet, 'borrow.' We'll get to that in just a moment.
This simple example actually illustrates a lot of Rust's power: Rust has prevented us, at compile time, from breaking our own rules. Because Rust's references check these kinds of rules entirely at compile time, there's no runtime overhead for this safety. At runtime, these are the same as a raw machine pointer, like in C or C++. We've just double-checked ahead of time that we haven't done anything dangerous.
Rust will also prevent us from creating two mutable references that alias. This won't work:
let mut x = 5i;
let y = &mut x;
let z = &mut x;
It gives us this error:
error: cannot borrow `x` as mutable more than once at a time
let z = &mut x;
^
note: previous borrow of `x` occurs here; the mutable borrow prevents subsequent moves, borrows, or modification of `x` until the borrow ends
let y = &mut x;
^
note: previous borrow ends here
fn main() {
let mut x = 5i;
let y = &mut x;
let z = &mut x;
}
^
This is a big error message. Let's dig into it for a moment. There are three parts: the error and two notes. The error says what we expected, we cannot have two pointers that point to the same memory.
The two notes give some extra context. Rust's error messages often contain this
kind of extra information when the error is complex. Rust is telling us two
things: first, that the reason we cannot borrow x as z is that we
previously borrowed x as y. The second note shows where y's borrowing
ends.
Wait, borrowing?
In order to truly understand this error, we have to learn a few new concepts: ownership, borrowing, and lifetimes.
Whenever a resource of some kind is created, something must be responsible for destroying that resource as well. Given that we're discussing pointers right now, let's discuss this in the context of memory allocation, though it applies to other resources as well.
When you allocate heap memory, you need a mechanism to free that memory. Many languages let the programmer control the allocation, and then use a garbage collector to handle the deallocation. This is a valid, time-tested strategy, but it's not without its drawbacks. Because the programmer does not have to think as much about deallocation, allocation becomes something commonplace, because it's easy. And if you need precise control over when something is deallocated, leaving it up to your runtime can make this difficult.
Rust chooses a different path, and that path is called ownership. Any binding that creates a resource is the owner of that resource.
Being an owner affords you some privileges:
- You control when that resource is deallocated.
- You may lend that resource, immutably, to as many borrowers as you'd like.
- You may lend that resource, mutably, to a single borrower.
But it also comes with some restrictions:
- If someone is borrowing your resource (either mutably or immutably), you may not mutate the resource or mutably lend it to someone.
- If someone is mutably borrowing your resource, you may not lend it out at all (mutably or immutably) or access it in any way.
What's up with all this 'lending' and 'borrowing'? When you allocate memory, you get a pointer to that memory. This pointer allows you to manipulate said memory. If you are the owner of a pointer, then you may allow another binding to temporarily borrow that pointer, and then they can manipulate the memory. The length of time that the borrower is borrowing the pointer from you is called a lifetime.
If two distinct bindings share a pointer, and the memory that pointer points to is immutable, then there are no problems. But if it's mutable, both pointers can attempt to write to the memory at the same time, causing a race condition. Therefore, if someone wants to mutate something that they've borrowed from you, you must not have lent out that pointer to anyone else.
Rust has a sophisticated system called the borrow checker to make sure that everyone plays by these rules. At compile time, it verifies that none of these rules are broken. If there's no problem, our program compiles successfully, and there is no runtime overhead for any of this. The borrow checker works only at compile time. If the borrow checker did find a problem, it will report a lifetime error, and your program will refuse to compile.
That's a lot to take in. It's also one of the most important concepts in all of Rust. Let's see this syntax in action:
{
let x = 5i; // x is the owner of this integer, which is memory on the stack.
// other code here...
} // privilege 1: when x goes out of scope, this memory is deallocated
/// this function borrows an integer. It's given back automatically when the
/// function returns.
fn foo(x: &int) -> &int { x }
{
let x = 5i; // x is the owner of this integer, which is memory on the stack.
// privilege 2: you may lend that resource, to as many borrowers as you'd like
let y = &x;
let z = &x;
foo(&x); // functions can borrow too!
let a = &x; // we can do this alllllll day!
}
{
let mut x = 5i; // x is the owner of this integer, which is memory on the stack.
let y = &mut x; // privilege 3: you may lend that resource to a single borrower,
// mutably
}
If you are a borrower, you get a few privileges as well, but must also obey a restriction:
- If the borrow is immutable, you may read the data the pointer points to.
- If the borrow is mutable, you may read and write the data the pointer points to.
- You may lend the pointer to someone else in an immutable fashion, BUT
- When you do so, they must return it to you before you must give your own borrow back.
This last requirement can seem odd, but it also makes sense. If you have to return something, and you've lent it to someone, they need to give it back to you for you to give it back! If we didn't, then the owner could deallocate the memory, and the person we've loaned it out to would have a pointer to invalid memory. This is called a 'dangling pointer.'
Let's re-examine the error that led us to talk about all of this, which was a violation of the restrictions placed on owners who lend something out mutably. The code:
let mut x = 5i;
let y = &mut x;
let z = &mut x;
The error:
error: cannot borrow `x` as mutable more than once at a time
let z = &mut x;
^
note: previous borrow of `x` occurs here; the mutable borrow prevents subsequent moves, borrows, or modification of `x` until the borrow ends
let y = &mut x;
^
note: previous borrow ends here
fn main() {
let mut x = 5i;
let y = &mut x;
let z = &mut x;
}
^
This error comes in three parts. Let's go over each in turn.
error: cannot borrow `x` as mutable more than once at a time
let z = &mut x;
^
This error states the restriction: you cannot lend out something mutable more than once at the same time. The borrow checker knows the rules!
note: previous borrow of `x` occurs here; the mutable borrow prevents subsequent moves, borrows, or modification of `x` until the borrow ends
let y = &mut x;
^
Some compiler errors come with notes to help you fix the error. This error comes
with two notes, and this is the first. This note informs us of exactly where
the first mutable borrow occurred. The error showed us the second. So now we
see both parts of the problem. It also alludes to rule #3, by reminding us that
we can't change x until the borrow is over.
note: previous borrow ends here
fn main() {
let mut x = 5i;
let y = &mut x;
let z = &mut x;
}
^
Here's the second note, which lets us know where the first borrow would be over.
This is useful, because if we wait to try to borrow x after this borrow is
over, then everything will work.
For more advanced patterns, please consult the Lifetime
Guide. You'll also learn what this type signature with
the 'a syntax is:
pub fn as_maybe_owned(&self) -> MaybeOwned<'a> { ... }
All of our references so far have been to variables we've created on the stack.
In Rust, the simplest way to allocate heap variables is using a box. To
create a box, use the box keyword:
let x = box 5i;
This allocates an integer 5 on the heap, and creates a binding x that
refers to it.. The great thing about boxed pointers is that we don't have to
manually free this allocation! If we write
{
let x = box 5i;
// do stuff
}
then Rust will automatically free x at the end of the block. This isn't
because Rust has a garbage collector -- it doesn't. Instead, when x goes out
of scope, Rust frees x. This Rust code will do the same thing as the
following C code:
{
int *x = (int *)malloc(sizeof(int));
// do stuff
free(x);
}
This means we get the benefits of manual memory management, but the compiler
ensures that we don't do something wrong. We can't forget to free our memory.
Boxes are the sole owner of their contents, so you cannot take a mutable reference to them and then use the original box:
let mut x = box 5i;
let y = &mut x;
*x; // you might expect 5, but this is actually an error
This gives us this error:
8:7 error: cannot use `*x` because it was mutably borrowed
*x;
^~
6:19 note: borrow of `x` occurs here
let y = &mut x;
^
As long as y is borrowing the contents, we cannot use x. After y is
done borrowing the value, we can use it again. This works fine:
let mut x = box 5i;
{
let y = &mut x;
} // y goes out of scope at the end of the block
*x;
Sometimes, you need to allocate something on the heap, but give out multiple
references to the memory. Rust's Rc<T> (pronounced 'arr cee tee') and
Arc<T> types (again, the T is for generics, we'll learn more later) provide
you with this ability. Rc stands for 'reference counted,' and Arc for
'atomically reference counted.' This is how Rust keeps track of the multiple
owners: every time we make a new reference to the Rc<T>, we add one to its
internal 'reference count.' Every time a reference goes out of scope, we
subtract one from the count. When the count is zero, the Rc<T> can be safely
deallocated. Arc<T> is almost identical to Rc<T>, except for one thing: The
'atomically' in 'Arc' means that increasing and decreasing the count uses a
thread-safe mechanism to do so. Why two types? Rc<T> is faster, so if you're
not in a multi-threaded scenario, you can have that advantage. Since we haven't
talked about threading yet in Rust, we'll show you Rc<T> for the rest of this
section.
To create an Rc<T>, use Rc::new():
use std::rc::Rc;
let x = Rc::new(5i);
To create a second reference, use the .clone() method:
use std::rc::Rc;
let x = Rc::new(5i);
let y = x.clone();
The Rc<T> will live as long as any of its references are alive. After they
all go out of scope, the memory will be freed.
If you use Rc<T> or Arc<T>, you have to be careful about introducing
cycles. If you have two Rc<T>s that point to each other, the reference counts
will never drop to zero, and you'll have a memory leak. To learn more, check
out the section on Rc<T> and Arc<T> in the pointers
guide.
We've made use of patterns a few times in the guide: first with let bindings,
then with match statements. Let's go on a whirlwind tour of all of the things
patterns can do!
A quick refresher: you can match against literals directly, and _ acts as an
'any' case:
let x = 1i;
match x {
1 => println!("one"),
2 => println!("two"),
3 => println!("three"),
_ => println!("anything"),
}
You can match multiple patterns with |:
let x = 1i;
match x {
1 | 2 => println!("one or two"),
3 => println!("three"),
_ => println!("anything"),
}
You can match a range of values with ..:
let x = 1i;
match x {
1 .. 5 => println!("one through five"),
_ => println!("anything"),
}
Ranges are mostly used with integers and single characters.
If you're matching multiple things, via a | or a .., you can bind
the value to a name with @:
let x = 1i;
match x {
x @ 1 .. 5 => println!("got {}", x),
_ => println!("anything"),
}
If you're matching on an enum which has variants, you can use .. to
ignore the value in the variant:
enum OptionalInt {
Value(int),
Missing,
}
let x = Value(5i);
match x {
Value(..) => println!("Got an int!"),
Missing => println!("No such luck."),
}
You can introduce match guards with if:
enum OptionalInt {
Value(int),
Missing,
}
let x = Value(5i);
match x {
Value(x) if x > 5 => println!("Got an int bigger than five!"),
Value(..) => println!("Got an int!"),
Missing => println!("No such luck."),
}
If you're matching on a pointer, you can use the same syntax as you declared it
with. First, &:
let x = &5i;
match x {
&x => println!("Got a value: {}", x),
}
Here, the x inside the match has type int. In other words, the left hand
side of the pattern destructures the value. If we have &5i, then in &x, x
would be 5i.
If you want to get a reference, use the ref keyword:
let x = 5i;
match x {
ref x => println!("Got a reference to {}", x),
}
Here, the x inside the match has the type &int. In other words, the ref
keyword creates a reference, for use in the pattern. If you need a mutable
reference, ref mut will work in the same way:
let mut x = 5i;
match x {
ref mut x => println!("Got a mutable reference to {}", x),
}
If you have a struct, you can destructure it inside of a pattern:
struct Point {
x: int,
y: int,
}
let origin = Point { x: 0i, y: 0i };
match origin {
Point { x: x, y: y } => println!("({},{})", x, y),
}
If we only care about some of the values, we don't have to give them all names:
struct Point {
x: int,
y: int,
}
let origin = Point { x: 0i, y: 0i };
match origin {
Point { x: x, .. } => println!("x is {}", x),
}
Whew! That's a lot of different ways to match things, and they can all be mixed and matched, depending on what you're doing:
match x {
Foo { x: Some(ref name), y: None } => ...
}
Patterns are very powerful. Make good use of them.
Functions are great, but if you want to call a bunch of them on some data, it can be awkward. Consider this code:
baz(bar(foo(x)));
We would read this left-to right, and so we see 'baz bar foo.' But this isn't the order that the functions would get called in, that's inside-out: 'foo bar baz.' Wouldn't it be nice if we could do this instead?
x.foo().bar().baz();
Luckily, as you may have guessed with the leading question, you can! Rust provides
the ability to use this method call syntax via the impl keyword.
Here's how it works:
struct Circle {
x: f64,
y: f64,
radius: f64,
}
impl Circle {
fn area(&self) -> f64 {
std::f64::consts::PI * (self.radius * self.radius)
}
}
fn main() {
let c = Circle { x: 0.0, y: 0.0, radius: 2.0 };
println!("{}", c.area());
}
This will print 12.566371.
We've made a struct that represents a circle. We then write an impl block,
and inside it, define a method, area. Methods take a special first
parameter, &self. There are three variants: self, &self, and &mut self.
You can think of this first parameter as being the x in x.foo(). The three
variants correspond to the three kinds of thing x could be: self if it's
just a value on the stack, &self if it's a reference, and &mut self if it's
a mutable reference. We should default to using &self, as it's the most
common.
Finally, as you may remember, the value of the area of a circle is π*r².
Because we took the &self parameter to area, we can use it just like any
other parameter. Because we know it's a Circle, we can access the radius
just like we would with any other struct. An import of π and some
multiplications later, and we have our area.
You can also define methods that do not take a self parameter. Here's a
pattern that's very common in Rust code:
struct Circle {
x: f64,
y: f64,
radius: f64,
}
impl Circle {
fn new(x: f64, y: f64, radius: f64) -> Circle {
Circle {
x: x,
y: y,
radius: radius,
}
}
}
fn main() {
let c = Circle::new(0.0, 0.0, 2.0);
}
This static method builds a new Circle for us. Note that static methods
are called with the Struct::method() syntax, rather than the ref.method()
syntax.
So far, we've made lots of functions in Rust. But we've given them all names. Rust also allows us to create anonymous functions too. Rust's anonymous functions are called closures. By themselves, closures aren't all that interesting, but when you combine them with functions that take closures as arguments, really powerful things are possible.
Let's make a closure:
let add_one = |x| { 1i + x };
println!("The 5 plus 1 is {}.", add_one(5i));
We create a closure using the |...| { ... } syntax, and then we create a
binding so we can use it later. Note that we call the function using the
binding name and two parentheses, just like we would for a named function.
Let's compare syntax. The two are pretty close:
let add_one = |x: int| -> int { 1i + x };
fn add_one (x: int) -> int { 1i + x }
As you may have noticed, closures infer their argument and return types, so you
don't need to declare one. This is different from named functions, which
default to returning unit (()).
There's one big difference between a closure and named functions, and it's in the name: a closure "closes over its environment." What's that mean? It means this:
fn main() {
let x = 5i;
let printer = || { println!("x is: {}", x); };
printer(); // prints "x is: 5"
}
The || syntax means this is an anonymous closure that takes no arguments.
Without it, we'd just have a block of code in {}s.
In other words, a closure has access to variables in the scope that it's defined. The closure borrows any variables that it uses. This will error:
fn main() {
let mut x = 5i;
let printer = || { println!("x is: {}", x); };
x = 6i; // error: cannot assign to `x` because it is borrowed
}
Rust has a second type of closure, called a proc. Procs are created
with the proc keyword:
let x = 5i;
let p = proc() { x * x };
println!("{}", p()); // prints 25
Procs have a big difference from closures: they may only be called once. This will error when we try to compile:
let x = 5i;
let p = proc() { x * x };
println!("{}", p());
println!("{}", p()); // error: use of moved value `p`
This restriction is important. Procs are allowed to consume values that they capture, and thus have to be restricted to being called once for soundness reasons: any value consumed would be invalid on a second call.
Procs are most useful with Rust's concurrency features, and so we'll just leave it at this for now. We'll talk about them more in the "Tasks" section of the guide.
Closures are most useful as an argument to another function. Here's an example:
fn twice(x: int, f: |int| -> int) -> int {
f(x) + f(x)
}
fn main() {
let square = |x: int| { x * x };
twice(5i, square); // evaluates to 50
}
Let's break example down, starting with main:
let square = |x: int| { x * x };
We've seen this before. We make a closure that takes an integer, and returns its square.
twice(5i, square); // evaluates to 50
This line is more interesting. Here, we call our function, twice, and we pass
it two arguments: an integer, 5, and our closure, square. This is just like
passing any other two variable bindings to a function, but if you've never
worked with closures before, it can seem a little complex. Just think: "I'm
passing two variables, one is an int, and one is a function."
Next, let's look at how twice is defined:
fn twice(x: int, f: |int| -> int) -> int {
twice takes two arguments, x and f. That's why we called it with two
arguments. x is an int, we've done that a ton of times. f is a function,
though, and that function takes an int and returns an int. Notice
how the |int| -> int syntax looks a lot like our definition of square
above, if we added the return type in:
let square = |x: int| -> int { x * x };
// |int| -> int
This function takes an int and returns an int.
This is the most complicated function signature we've seen yet! Give it a read a few times until you can see how it works. It takes a teeny bit of practice, and then it's easy.
Finally, twice returns an int as well.
Okay, let's look at the body of twice:
fn twice(x: int, f: |int| -> int) -> int {
f(x) + f(x)
}
Since our closure is named f, we can call it just like we called our closures
before. And we pass in our x argument to each one. Hence 'twice.'
If you do the math, (5 * 5) + (5 * 5) == 50, so that's the output we get.
Play around with this concept until you're comfortable with it. Rust's standard library uses lots of closures, where appropriate, so you'll be using this technique a lot.
If we didn't want to give square a name, we could also just define it inline.
This example is the same as the previous one:
fn twice(x: int, f: |int| -> int) -> int {
f(x) + f(x)
}
fn main() {
twice(5i, |x: int| { x * x }); // evaluates to 50
}
A named function's name can be used wherever you'd use a closure. Another way of writing the previous example:
fn twice(x: int, f: |int| -> int) -> int {
f(x) + f(x)
}
fn square(x: int) -> int { x * x }
fn main() {
twice(5i, square); // evaluates to 50
}
Doing this is not particularly common, but every once in a while, it's useful.
That's all you need to get the hang of closures! Closures are a little bit strange at first, but once you're used to using them, you'll miss them in any language that doesn't have them. Passing functions to other functions is incredibly powerful. Next, let's look at one of those things: iterators.
Let's talk about loops.
Remember Rust's for loop? Here's an example:
for x in range(0i, 10i) {
println!("{:d}", x);
}
Now that you know more Rust, we can talk in detail about how this works. The
range function returns an iterator. An iterator is something that we can
call the .next() method on repeatedly, and it gives us a sequence of things.
Like this:
let mut range = range(0i, 10i);
loop {
match range.next() {
Some(x) => {
println!("{}", x);
}
None => { break }
}
}
We make a mutable binding to the return value of range, which is our iterator.
We then loop, with an inner match. This match is used on the result of
range.next(), which gives us a reference to the next value of the iterator.
next returns an Option<int>, in this case, which will be Some(int) when
we have a value and None once we run out. If we get Some(int), we print it
out, and if we get None, we break out of the loop.
This code sample is basically the same as our for loop version. The for
loop is just a handy way to write this loop/match/break construct.
for loops aren't the only thing that uses iterators, however. Writing your
own iterator involves implementing the Iterator trait. While doing that is
outside of the scope of this guide, Rust provides a number of useful iterators
to accomplish various tasks. Before we talk about those, we should talk about a
Rust anti-pattern. And that's range.
Yes, we just talked about how range is cool. But range is also very
primitive. For example, if you needed to iterate over the contents of
a vector, you may be tempted to write this:
let nums = vec![1i, 2i, 3i];
for i in range(0u, nums.len()) {
println!("{}", nums[i]);
}
This is strictly worse than using an actual iterator. The .iter() method on
vectors returns an iterator which iterates through a reference to each element
of the vector in turn. So write this:
let nums = vec![1i, 2i, 3i];
for num in nums.iter() {
println!("{}", num);
}
There are two reasons for this. First, this more directly expresses what we
mean. We iterate through the entire vector, rather than iterating through
indexes, and then indexing the vector. Second, this version is more efficient:
the first version will have extra bounds checking because it used indexing,
nums[i]. But since we yield a reference to each element of the vector in turn
with the iterator, there's no bounds checking in the second example. This is
very common with iterators: we can ignore unnecessary bounds checks, but still
know that we're safe.
There's another detail here that's not 100% clear because of how println!
works. num is actually of type &int. That is, it's a reference to an int,
not an int itself. println! handles the dereferencing for us, so we don't
see it. This code works fine too:
let nums = vec![1i, 2i, 3i];
for num in nums.iter() {
println!("{}", *num);
}
Now we're explicitly dereferencing num. Why does iter() give us references?
Well, if it gave us the data itself, we would have to be its owner, which would
involve making a copy of the data and giving us the copy. With references,
we're just borrowing a reference to the data, and so it's just passing
a reference, without needing to do the copy.
So, now that we've established that range is often not what you want, let's
talk about what you do want instead.
There are three broad classes of things that are relevant here: iterators, iterator adapters, and consumers. Here's some definitions:
- 'iterators' give you a sequence of values.
- 'iterator adapters' operate on an iterator, producing a new iterator with a different output sequence.
- 'consumers' operate on an iterator, producing some final set of values.
Let's talk about consumers first, since you've already seen an iterator,
range.
A 'consumer' operates on an iterator, returning some kind of value or values.
The most common consumer is collect(). This code doesn't quite compile,
but it shows the intention:
let one_to_one_hundred = range(0i, 100i).collect();
As you can see, we call collect() on our iterator. collect() takes
as many values as the iterator will give it, and returns a collection
of the results. So why won't this compile? Rust can't determine what
type of things you want to collect, and so you need to let it know.
Here's the version that does compile:
let one_to_one_hundred = range(0i, 100i).collect::<Vec<int>>();
If you remember, the ::<> syntax allows us to give a type hint,
and so we tell it that we want a vector of integers.
collect() is the most common consumer, but there are others too. find()
is one:
let one_to_one_hundred = range(0i, 100i);
let greater_than_forty_two = range(0i, 100i)
.find(|x| *x >= 42);
match greater_than_forty_two {
Some(_) => println!("We got some numbers!"),
None => println!("No numbers found :("),
}
find takes a closure, and works on a reference to each element of an
iterator. This closure returns true if the element is the element we're
looking for, and false otherwise. Because we might not find a matching
element, find returns an Option rather than the element itself.
Another important consumer is fold. Here's what it looks like:
let sum = range(1i, 100i)
.fold(0i, |sum, x| sum + x);
fold() is a consumer that looks like this:
fold(base, |accumulator, element| ...). It takes two arguments: the first
is an element called the "base". The second is a closure that itself takes two
arguments: the first is called the "accumulator," and the second is an
"element." Upon each iteration, the closure is called, and the result is the
value of the accumulator on the next iteration. On the first iteration, the
base is the value of the accumulator.
Okay, that's a bit confusing. Let's examine the values of all of these things in this iterator:
| base | accumulator | element | closure result |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0i | 0i | 1i | 1i |
| 0i | 1i | 2i | 3i |
| 0i | 3i | 3i | 6i |
We called fold() with these arguments:
# range(1i, 5i)
.fold(0i, |sum, x| sum + x);
So, 0i is our base, sum is our accumulator, and x is our element. On the
first iteration, we set sum to 0i, and x is the first element of nums,
1i. We then add sum and x, which gives us 0i + 1i = 1i. On the second
iteration, that value becomes our accumulator, sum, and the element is
the second element of the array, 2i. 1i + 2i = 3i, and so that becomes
the value of the accumulator for the last iteration. On that iteration,
x is the last element, 3i, and 3i + 3i = 6i, which is our final
result for our sum. 1 + 2 + 3 = 6, and that's the result we got.
Whew. fold can be a bit strange the first few times you see it, but once it
clicks, you can use it all over the place. Any time you have a list of things,
and you want a single result, fold is appropriate.
Consumers are important due to one additional property of iterators we haven't talked about yet: laziness. Let's talk some more about iterators, and you'll see why consumers matter.
As we've said before, an iterator is something that we can call the .next()
method on repeatedly, and it gives us a sequence of things. Because you need
to call the method, this means that iterators are lazy. This code, for
example, does not actually generate the numbers 1-100, and just creates a
value that represents the sequence:
let nums = range(1i, 100i);
Since we didn't do anything with the range, it didn't generate the sequence. Once we add the consumer:
let nums = range(1i, 100i).collect::<Vec<int>>();
Now, collect() will require that range() give it some numbers, and so
it will do the work of generating the sequence.
range is one of two basic iterators that you'll see. The other is iter(),
which you've used before. iter() can turn a vector into a simple iterator
that gives you each element in turn:
let nums = [1i, 2i, 3i];
for num in nums.iter() {
println!("{}", num);
}
These two basic iterators should serve you well. There are some more
advanced iterators, including ones that are infinite. Like count:
std::iter::count(1i, 5i);
This iterator counts up from one, adding five each time. It will give
you a new integer every time, forever. Well, technically, until the
maximum number that an int can represent. But since iterators are lazy,
that's okay! You probably don't want to use collect() on it, though...
That's enough about iterators. Iterator adapters are the last concept we need to talk about with regards to iterators. Let's get to it!
"Iterator adapters" take an iterator and modify it somehow, producing
a new iterator. The simplest one is called map:
range(1i, 100i).map(|x| x + 1i);
map is called upon another iterator, and produces a new iterator where each
element reference has the closure it's been given as an argument called on it.
So this would give us the numbers from 2-101. Well, almost! If you
compile the example, you'll get a warning:
2:37 warning: unused result which must be used: iterator adaptors are lazy and
do nothing unless consumed, #[warn(unused_must_use)] on by default
range(1i, 100i).map(|x| x + 1i);
^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Laziness strikes again! That closure will never execute. This example doesn't print any numbers:
range(1i, 100i).map(|x| println!("{}", x));
If you are trying to execute a closure on an iterator for its side effects,
just use for instead.
There are tons of interesting iterator adapters. take(n) will get the
first n items out of an iterator, and return them as a list. Let's
try it out with our infinite iterator from before, count():
for i in std::iter::count(1i, 5i).take(5) {
println!("{}", i);
}
This will print
1
6
11
16
21
filter() is an adapter that takes a closure as an argument. This closure
returns true or false. The new iterator filter() produces returns
only the elements that that closure returned true for:
for i in range(1i, 100i).filter(|x| x % 2 == 0) {
println!("{}", i);
}
This will print all of the even numbers between one and a hundred.
You can chain all three things together: start with an iterator, adapt it a few times, and then consume the result. Check it out:
range(1i, 1000i)
.filter(|x| x % 2 == 0)
.filter(|x| x % 3 == 0)
.take(5)
.collect::<Vec<int>>();
This will give you a vector containing 6, 12, 18, 24, and 30.
This is just a small taste of what iterators, iterator adapters, and consumers can help you with. There are a number of really useful iterators, and you can write your own as well. Iterators provide a safe, efficient way to manipulate all kinds of lists. They're a little unusual at first, but if you play with them, you'll get hooked. For a full list of the different iterators and consumers, check out the iterator module documentation.
Sometimes, when writing a function or data type, we may want it to work for
multiple types of arguments. For example, remember our OptionalInt type?
enum OptionalInt {
Value(int),
Missing,
}
If we wanted to also have an OptionalFloat64, we would need a new enum:
enum OptionalFloat64 {
Valuef64(f64),
Missingf64,
}
This is really unfortunate. Luckily, Rust has a feature that gives us a better way: generics. Generics are called parametric polymorphism in type theory, which means that they are types or functions that have multiple forms ("poly" is multiple, "morph" is form) over a given parameter ("parametric").
Anyway, enough with type theory declarations, let's check out the generic form
of OptionalInt. It is actually provided by Rust itself, and looks like this:
enum Option<T> {
Some(T),
None,
}The <T> part, which you've seen a few times before, indicates that this is
a generic data type. Inside the declaration of our enum, wherever we see a T,
we substitute that type for the same type used in the generic. Here's an
example of using Option<T>, with some extra type annotations:
let x: Option<int> = Some(5i);
In the type declaration, we say Option<int>. Note how similar this looks to
Option<T>. So, in this particular Option, T has the value of int. On
the right hand side of the binding, we do make a Some(T), where T is 5i.
Since that's an int, the two sides match, and Rust is happy. If they didn't
match, we'd get an error:
let x: Option<f64> = Some(5i);
// error: mismatched types: expected `core::option::Option<f64>`
// but found `core::option::Option<int>` (expected f64 but found int)
That doesn't mean we can't make Option<T>s that hold an f64! They just have to
match up:
let x: Option<int> = Some(5i);
let y: Option<f64> = Some(5.0f64);
This is just fine. One definition, multiple uses.
Generics don't have to only be generic over one type. Consider Rust's built-in
Result<T, E> type:
enum Result<T, E> {
Ok(T),
Err(E),
}
This type is generic over two types: T and E. By the way, the capital letters
can be any letter you'd like. We could define Result<T, E> as:
enum Result<H, N> {
Ok(H),
Err(N),
}
if we wanted to. Convention says that the first generic parameter should be
T, for 'type,' and that we use E for 'error.' Rust doesn't care, however.
The Result<T, E> type is intended to
be used to return the result of a computation, and to have the ability to
return an error if it didn't work out. Here's an example:
let x: Result<f64, String> = Ok(2.3f64);
let y: Result<f64, String> = Err("There was an error.".to_string());
This particular Result will return an f64 if there's a success, and a
String if there's a failure. Let's write a function that uses Result<T, E>:
fn inverse(x: f64) -> Result<f64, String> {
if x == 0.0f64 { return Err("x cannot be zero!".to_string()); }
Ok(1.0f64 / x)
}
We don't want to take the inverse of zero, so we check to make sure that we
weren't passed zero. If we were, then we return an Err, with a message. If
it's okay, we return an Ok, with the answer.
Why does this matter? Well, remember how match does exhaustive matches?
Here's how this function gets used:
# fn inverse(x: f64) -> Result<f64, String> {
# if x == 0.0f64 { return Err("x cannot be zero!".to_string()); }
# Ok(1.0f64 / x)
# }
let x = inverse(25.0f64);
match x {
Ok(x) => println!("The inverse of 25 is {}", x),
Err(msg) => println!("Error: {}", msg),
}
The match enforces that we handle the Err case. In addition, because the
answer is wrapped up in an Ok, we can't just use the result without doing
the match:
let x = inverse(25.0f64);
println!("{}", x + 2.0f64); // error: binary operation `+` cannot be applied
// to type `core::result::Result<f64,collections::string::String>`
This function is great, but there's one other problem: it only works for 64 bit floating point values. What if we wanted to handle 32 bit floating point as well? We'd have to write this:
fn inverse32(x: f32) -> Result<f32, String> {
if x == 0.0f32 { return Err("x cannot be zero!".to_string()); }
Ok(1.0f32 / x)
}
Bummer. What we need is a generic function. Luckily, we can write one!
However, it won't quite work yet. Before we get into that, let's talk syntax.
A generic version of inverse would look something like this:
fn inverse<T>(x: T) -> Result<T, String> {
if x == 0.0 { return Err("x cannot be zero!".to_string()); }
Ok(1.0 / x)
}
Just like how we had Option<T>, we use a similar syntax for inverse<T>.
We can then use T inside the rest of the signature: x has type T, and half
of the Result has type T. However, if we try to compile that example, we'll get
an error:
error: binary operation `==` cannot be applied to type `T`
Because T can be any type, it may be a type that doesn't implement ==,
and therefore, the first line would be wrong. What do we do?
To fix this example, we need to learn about another Rust feature: traits.
Do you remember the impl keyword, used to call a function with method
syntax?
struct Circle {
x: f64,
y: f64,
radius: f64,
}
impl Circle {
fn area(&self) -> f64 {
std::f64::consts::PI * (self.radius * self.radius)
}
}
Traits are similar, except that we define a trait with just the method signature, then implement the trait for that struct. Like this:
struct Circle {
x: f64,
y: f64,
radius: f64,
}
trait HasArea {
fn area(&self) -> f64;
}
impl HasArea for Circle {
fn area(&self) -> f64 {
std::f64::consts::PI * (self.radius * self.radius)
}
}
As you can see, the trait block looks very similar to the impl block,
but we don't define a body, just a type signature. When we impl a trait,
we use impl Trait for Item, rather than just impl Item.
So what's the big deal? Remember the error we were getting with our generic
inverse function?
error: binary operation `==` cannot be applied to type `T`
We can use traits to constrain our generics. Consider this function, which does not compile, and gives us a similar error:
fn print_area<T>(shape: T) {
println!("This shape has an area of {}", shape.area());
}
Rust complains:
error: type `T` does not implement any method in scope named `area`
Because T can be any type, we can't be sure that it implements the area
method. But we can add a trait constraint to our generic T, ensuring
that it does:
# trait HasArea {
# fn area(&self) -> f64;
# }
fn print_area<T: HasArea>(shape: T) {
println!("This shape has an area of {}", shape.area());
}
The syntax <T: HasArea> means any type that implements the HasArea trait.
Because traits define function type signatures, we can be sure that any type
which implements HasArea will have an .area() method.
Here's an extended example of how this works:
trait HasArea {
fn area(&self) -> f64;
}
struct Circle {
x: f64,
y: f64,
radius: f64,
}
impl HasArea for Circle {
fn area(&self) -> f64 {
std::f64::consts::PI * (self.radius * self.radius)
}
}
struct Square {
x: f64,
y: f64,
side: f64,
}
impl HasArea for Square {
fn area(&self) -> f64 {
self.side * self.side
}
}
fn print_area<T: HasArea>(shape: T) {
println!("This shape has an area of {}", shape.area());
}
fn main() {
let c = Circle {
x: 0.0f64,
y: 0.0f64,
radius: 1.0f64,
};
let s = Square {
x: 0.0f64,
y: 0.0f64,
side: 1.0f64,
};
print_area(c);
print_area(s);
}
This program outputs:
This shape has an area of 3.141593
This shape has an area of 1
As you can see, print_area is now generic, but also ensures that we
have passed in the correct types. If we pass in an incorrect type:
print_area(5i);
We get a compile-time error:
error: failed to find an implementation of trait main::HasArea for int
So far, we've only added trait implementations to structs, but you can
implement a trait for any type. So technically, we could implement
HasArea for int:
trait HasArea {
fn area(&self) -> f64;
}
impl HasArea for int {
fn area(&self) -> f64 {
println!("this is silly");
*self as f64
}
}
5i.area();
It is considered poor style to implement methods on such primitive types, even though it is possible.
This may seem like the Wild West, but there are two other restrictions around
implementing traits that prevent this from getting out of hand. First, traits
must be used in any scope where you wish to use the trait's method. So for
example, this does not work:
mod shapes {
use std::f64::consts;
trait HasArea {
fn area(&self) -> f64;
}
struct Circle {
x: f64,
y: f64,
radius: f64,
}
impl HasArea for Circle {
fn area(&self) -> f64 {
consts::PI * (self.radius * self.radius)
}
}
}
fn main() {
let c = shapes::Circle {
x: 0.0f64,
y: 0.0f64,
radius: 1.0f64,
};
println!("{}", c.area());
}
Now that we've moved the structs and traits into their own module, we get an error:
error: type `shapes::Circle` does not implement any method in scope named `area`
If we add a use line right above main and make the right things public,
everything is fine:
use shapes::HasArea;
mod shapes {
use std::f64::consts;
pub trait HasArea {
fn area(&self) -> f64;
}
pub struct Circle {
pub x: f64,
pub y: f64,
pub radius: f64,
}
impl HasArea for Circle {
fn area(&self) -> f64 {
consts::PI * (self.radius * self.radius)
}
}
}
fn main() {
let c = shapes::Circle {
x: 0.0f64,
y: 0.0f64,
radius: 1.0f64,
};
println!("{}", c.area());
}
This means that even if someone does something bad like add methods to int,
it won't affect you, unless you use that trait.
There's one more restriction on implementing traits. Either the trait or the
type you're writing the impl for must be inside your crate. So, we could
implement the HasArea type for int, because HasArea is in our crate. But
if we tried to implement Float, a trait provided by Rust, for int, we could
not, because both the trait and the type aren't in our crate.
One last thing about traits: generic functions with a trait bound use
monomorphization ("mono": one, "morph": form), so they are statically
dispatched. What's that mean? Well, let's take a look at print_area again:
fn print_area<T: HasArea>(shape: T) {
println!("This shape has an area of {}", shape.area());
}
fn main() {
let c = Circle { ... };
let s = Square { ... };
print_area(c);
print_area(s);
}
When we use this trait with Circle and Square, Rust ends up generating
two different functions with the concrete type, and replacing the call sites with
calls to the concrete implementations. In other words, you get something like
this:
fn __print_area_circle(shape: Circle) {
println!("This shape has an area of {}", shape.area());
}
fn __print_area_square(shape: Square) {
println!("This shape has an area of {}", shape.area());
}
fn main() {
let c = Circle { ... };
let s = Square { ... };
__print_area_circle(c);
__print_area_square(s);
}
The names don't actually change to this, it's just for illustration. But as you can see, there's no overhead of deciding which version to call here, hence 'statically dispatched.' The downside is that we have two copies of the same function, so our binary is a little bit larger.
Concurrency and parallelism are topics that are of increasing interest to a broad subsection of software developers. Modern computers are often multi-core, to the point that even embedded devices like cell phones have more than one processor. Rust's semantics lend themselves very nicely to solving a number of issues that programmers have with concurrency. Many concurrency errors that are runtime errors in other languages are compile-time errors in Rust.
Rust's concurrency primitive is called a task. Tasks are lightweight, and do not share memory in an unsafe manner, preferring message passing to communicate. It's worth noting that tasks are implemented as a library, and not part of the language. This means that in the future, other concurrency libraries can be written for Rust to help in specific scenarios. Here's an example of creating a task:
spawn(proc() {
println!("Hello from a task!");
});
The spawn function takes a proc as an argument, and runs that proc in a new
task. A proc takes ownership of its entire environment, and so any variables
that you use inside the proc will not be usable afterward:
let mut x = vec![1i, 2i, 3i];
spawn(proc() {
println!("The value of x[0] is: {}", x[0]);
});
println!("The value of x[0] is: {}", x[0]); // error: use of moved value: `x`
x is now owned by the proc, and so we can't use it anymore. Many other
languages would let us do this, but it's not safe to do so. Rust's type system
catches the error.
If tasks were only able to capture these values, they wouldn't be very useful. Luckily, tasks can communicate with each other through channels. Channels work like this:
let (tx, rx) = channel();
spawn(proc() {
tx.send("Hello from a task!".to_string());
});
let message = rx.recv();
println!("{}", message);
The channel() function returns two endpoints: a Receiver<T> and a
Sender<T>. You can use the .send() method on the Sender<T> end, and
receive the message on the Receiver<T> side with the recv() method. This
method blocks until it gets a message. There's a similar method, .try_recv(),
which returns an Option<T> and does not block.
If you want to send messages to the task as well, create two channels!
let (tx1, rx1) = channel();
let (tx2, rx2) = channel();
spawn(proc() {
tx1.send("Hello from a task!".to_string());
let message = rx2.recv();
println!("{}", message);
});
let message = rx1.recv();
println!("{}", message);
tx2.send("Goodbye from main!".to_string());
The proc has one sending end and one receiving end, and the main task has one of each as well. Now they can talk back and forth in whatever way they wish.
Notice as well that because Sender and Receiver are generic, while you can
pass any kind of information through the channel, the ends are strongly typed.
If you try to pass a string, and then an integer, Rust will complain.
With these basic primitives, many different concurrency patterns can be
developed. Rust includes some of these types in its standard library. For
example, if you wish to compute some value in the background, Future is
a useful thing to use:
use std::sync::Future;
let mut delayed_value = Future::spawn(proc() {
// just return anything for examples' sake
12345i
});
println!("value = {}", delayed_value.get());
Calling Future::spawn works just like spawn(): it takes a proc. In this
case, though, you don't need to mess with the channel: just have the proc
return the value.
Future::spawn will return a value which we can bind with let. It needs
to be mutable, because once the value is computed, it saves a copy of the
value, and if it were immutable, it couldn't update itself.
The proc will go on processing in the background, and when we need the final
value, we can call get() on it. This will block until the result is done,
but if it's finished computing in the background, we'll just get the value
immediately.
Tasks don't always succeed, they can also fail. A task that wishes to fail
can call the fail! macro, passing a message:
spawn(proc() {
fail!("Nope.");
});
If a task fails, it is not possible for it to recover. However, it can
notify other tasks that it has failed. We can do this with task::try:
use std::task;
use std::rand;
let result = task::try(proc() {
if rand::random() {
println!("OK");
} else {
fail!("oops!");
}
});
This task will randomly fail or succeed. task::try returns a Result
type, so we can handle the response like any other computation that may
fail.
One of Rust's most advanced features is its system of macros. While functions allow you to provide abstractions over values and operations, macros allow you to provide abstractions over syntax. Do you wish Rust had the ability to do something that it can't currently do? You may be able to write a macro to extend Rust's capabilities.
You've already used one macro extensively: println!. When we invoke
a Rust macro, we need to use the exclamation mark (!). There's two reasons
that this is true: the first is that it makes it clear when you're using a
macro. The second is that macros allow for flexible syntax, and so Rust must
be able to tell where a macro starts and ends. The !(...) helps with this.
Let's talk some more about println!. We could have implemented println! as
a function, but it would be worse. Why? Well, what macros allow you to do
is write code that generates more code. So when we call println! like this:
let x = 5i;
println!("x is: {}", x);
The println! macro does a few things:
- It parses the string to find any
{}s - It checks that the number of
{}s matches the number of other arguments. - It generates a bunch of Rust code, taking this in mind.
What this means is that you get type checking at compile time, because
Rust will generate code that takes all of the types into account. If
println! was a function, it could still do this type checking, but it
would happen at run time rather than compile time.
We can check this out using a special flag to rustc. This code, in a file
print.rs:
fn main() {
let x = "Hello";
println!("x is: {:s}", x);
}
Can have its macros expanded like this: rustc print.rs --pretty=expanded, will
give us this huge result:
#![feature(phase)]
#![no_std]
#![feature(globs)]
#[phase(plugin, link)]
extern crate std = "std";
extern crate rt = "native";
use std::prelude::*;
fn main() {
let x = "Hello";
match (&x,) {
(__arg0,) => {
#[inline]
#[allow(dead_code)]
static __STATIC_FMTSTR: [::std::fmt::rt::Piece<'static>, ..2u] =
[::std::fmt::rt::String("x is: "),
::std::fmt::rt::Argument(::std::fmt::rt::Argument{position:
::std::fmt::rt::ArgumentNext,
format:
::std::fmt::rt::FormatSpec{fill:
' ',
align:
::std::fmt::rt::AlignUnknown,
flags:
0u,
precision:
::std::fmt::rt::CountImplied,
width:
::std::fmt::rt::CountImplied,},})];
let __args_vec =
&[::std::fmt::argument(::std::fmt::secret_string, __arg0)];
let __args =
unsafe {
::std::fmt::Arguments::new(__STATIC_FMTSTR, __args_vec)
};
::std::io::stdio::println_args(&__args)
}
};
}
Intense. Here's a trimmed down version that's a bit easier to read:
fn main() {
let x = 5i;
match (&x,) {
(__arg0,) => {
static __STATIC_FMTSTR: =
[String("x is: "),
Argument(Argument {
position: ArgumentNext,
format: FormatSpec {
fill: ' ',
align: AlignUnknown,
flags: 0u,
precision: CountImplied,
width: CountImplied,
},
},
];
let __args_vec = &[argument(secret_string, __arg0)];
let __args = unsafe { Arguments::new(__STATIC_FMTSTR, __args_vec) };
println_args(&__args)
}
};
}
Whew! This isn't too terrible. You can see that we still let x = 5i,
but then things get a little bit hairy. Three more bindings get set: a
static format string, an argument vector, and the arguments. We then
invoke the println_args function with the generated arguments.
This is the code (well, the full version) that Rust actually compiles. You can
see all of the extra information that's here. We get all of the type safety and
options that it provides, but at compile time, and without needing to type all
of this out. This is how macros are powerful. Without them, you would need to
type all of this by hand to get a type checked println.
For more on macros, please consult the Macros Guide. Macros are a very advanced and still slightly experimental feature, but don't require a deep understanding to call, since they look just like functions. The Guide can help you if you want to write your own.
Finally, there's one more Rust concept that you should be aware of: unsafe.
There are two circumstances where Rust's safety provisions don't work well.
The first is when interfacing with C code, and the second is when building
certain kinds of abstractions.
Rust has support for FFI (which you can read about in the FFI
Guide), but can't guarantee that the C code will be safe.
Therefore, Rust marks such functions with the unsafe
keyword, which indicates that the function may not behave properly.
Second, if you'd like to create some sort of shared-memory data structure, Rust
won't allow it, because memory must be owned by a single owner. However, if
you're planning on making access to that shared memory safe, such as with a
mutex, you know that it's safe, but Rust can't know. Writing an unsafe
block allows you to ask the compiler to trust you. In this case, the internal
implementation of the mutex is considered unsafe, but the external interface
we present is safe. This allows it to be effectively used in normal Rust, while
being able to implement functionality that the compiler can't double check for
us.
Doesn't an escape hatch undermine the safety of the entire system? Well, if Rust code segfaults, it must be because of unsafe code somewhere. By annotating exactly where that is, you have a significantly smaller area to search.
We haven't even talked about any examples here, and that's because I want to emphasize that you should not be writing unsafe code unless you know exactly what you're doing. The vast majority of Rust developers will only interact with it when doing FFI, and advanced library authors may use it to build certain kinds of abstraction.
We covered a lot of ground here. When you've mastered everything in this Guide, you will have a firm grasp of basic Rust development. There's a whole lot more out there, we've just covered the surface. There's tons of topics that you can dig deeper into, and we've built specialized guides for many of them. To learn more, dig into the full documentation index.
Happy hacking!