3 <div style="border: 2px solid red; padding:5px;">
4 This guide is a work in progress. Until it is ready, we highly recommend that
5 you read the <a href="tutorial.html">Tutorial</a> instead. This work-in-progress Guide is being
6 displayed here in line with Rust's open development policy. Please open any
7 issues you find as usual.
12 Hey there! Welcome to the Rust guide. This is the place to be if you'd like to
13 learn how to program in Rust. Rust is a systems programming language with a
14 focus on "high-level, bare-metal programming": the lowest level control a
15 programming language can give you, but with zero-cost, higher level
16 abstractions, because people aren't computers. We really think Rust is
17 something special, and we hope you do too.
19 To show you how to get going with Rust, we're going to write the traditional
20 "Hello, World!" program. Next, we'll introduce you to a tool that's useful for
21 writing real-world Rust programs and libraries: "Cargo." Then, we'll show off
22 Rust's features by writing a little program together.
28 The first step to using Rust is to install it! There are a number of ways to
29 install Rust, but the easiest is to use the the `rustup` script. If you're on
30 Linux or a Mac, all you need to do is this (note that you don't need to type
31 in the `$`s, they just indicate the start of each command):
34 $ curl -s http://www.rust-lang.org/rustup.sh | sudo sh
37 (If you're concerned about `curl | sudo sh`, please keep reading. Disclaimer
40 If you're on Windows, please [download this .exe and run
41 it](http://static.rust-lang.org/dist/rust-nightly-install.exe).
43 If you decide you don't want Rust anymore, we'll be a bit sad, but that's okay.
44 Not every programming language is great for everyone. Just pass an argument to
48 $ curl -s http://www.rust-lang.org/rustup.sh | sudo sh -s -- --uninstall
51 If you used the Windows installer, just re-run the `.exe` and it will give you
54 You can re-run this script any time you want to update Rust. Which, at this
55 point, is often. Rust is still pre-1.0, and so people assume that you're using
58 This brings me to one other point: some people, and somewhat rightfully so, get
59 very upset when we tell you to `curl | sudo sh`. And they should be! Basically,
60 when you do this, you are trusting that the good people who maintain Rust
61 aren't going to hack your computer and do bad things. That's a good instinct!
62 If you're one of those people, please check out the documentation on [building
63 Rust from Source](https://github.com/rust-lang/rust#building-from-source), or
64 [the official binary downloads](http://www.rust-lang.org/install.html). And we
65 promise that this method will not be the way to install Rust forever: it's just
66 the easiest way to keep people updated while Rust is in its alpha state.
68 Oh, we should also mention the officially supported platforms:
70 * Windows (7, 8, Server 2008 R2), x86 only
71 * Linux (2.6.18 or later, various distributions), x86 and x86-64
72 * OSX 10.7 (Lion) or greater, x86 and x86-64
74 We extensively test Rust on these platforms, and a few others, too, like
75 Android. But these are the ones most likely to work, as they have the most
78 Finally, a comment about Windows. Rust considers Windows to be a first-class
79 platform upon release, but if we're honest, the Windows experience isn't as
80 integrated as the Linux/OS X experience is. We're working on it! If anything
81 does not work, it is a bug. Please let us know if that happens. Each and every
82 commit is tested against Windows just like any other platform.
84 If you've got Rust installed, you can open up a shell, and type this:
90 You should see some output that looks something like this:
93 rustc 0.12.0-pre (443a1cd 2014-06-08 14:56:52 -0700)
96 If you did, Rust has been installed successfully! Congrats!
98 If not, there are a number of places where you can get help. The easiest is
99 [the #rust IRC channel on irc.mozilla.org](irc://irc.mozilla.org/#rust), which
100 you can access through
101 [Mibbit](http://chat.mibbit.com/?server=irc.mozilla.org&channel=%23rust). Click
102 that link, and you'll be chatting with other Rustaceans (a silly nickname we
103 call ourselves), and we can help you out. Other great resources include [our
104 mailing list](https://mail.mozilla.org/listinfo/rust-dev), [the /r/rust
105 subreddit](http://www.reddit.com/r/rust), and [Stack
106 Overflow](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/rust).
110 Now that you have Rust installed, let's write your first Rust program. It's
111 traditional to make your first program in any new language one that prints the
112 text "Hello, world!" to the screen. The nice thing about starting with such a
113 simple program is that you can verify that your compiler isn't just installed,
114 but also working properly. And printing information to the screen is a pretty
117 The first thing that we need to do is make a file to put our code in. I like
118 to make a projects directory in my home directory, and keep all my projects
119 there. Rust does not care where your code lives.
121 This actually leads to one other concern we should address: this tutorial will
122 assume that you have basic familiarity with the command-line. Rust does not
123 require that you know a whole ton about the command line, but until the
124 language is in a more finished state, IDE support is spotty. Rust makes no
125 specific demands on your editing tooling, or where your code lives.
127 With that said, let's make a directory in our projects directory.
136 If you're on Windows and not using PowerShell, the `~` may not work. Consult
137 the documentation for your shell for more details.
139 Let's make a new source file next. I'm going to use the syntax `editor
140 filename` to represent editing a file in these examples, but you should use
141 whatever method you want. We'll call our file `hello_world.rs`:
144 $ editor hello_world.rs
147 Rust files always end in a `.rs` extension. If you're using more than one word
148 in your file name, use an underscore. `hello_world.rs` versus `goodbye.rs`.
150 Now that you've got your file open, type this in:
154 println!("Hello, world");
158 Save the file, and then type this into your terminal window:
161 $ rustc hello_world.rs
162 $ ./hello_world # or hello_world.exe on Windows
166 Success! Let's go over what just happened in detail.
174 These two lines define a **function** in Rust. The `main` function is special:
175 it's the beginning of every Rust program. The first line says "I'm declaring a
176 function named `main`, which takes no arguments and returns nothing." If there
177 were arguments, they would go inside the parentheses (`(` and `)`), and because
178 we aren't returning anything from this function, we've dropped that notation
179 entirely. We'll get to it later.
181 You'll also note that the function is wrapped in curly braces (`{` and `}`).
182 Rust requires these around all function bodies. It is also considered good
183 style to put the opening curly brace on the same line as the function
184 declaration, with one space in between.
186 Next up is this line:
189 println!("Hello, world");
192 This line does all of the work in our little program. There are a number of
193 details that are important here. The first is that it's indented with four
194 spaces, not tabs. Please configure your editor of choice to insert four spaces
195 with the tab key. We provide some sample configurations for various editors
196 [here](https://github.com/rust-lang/rust/tree/master/src/etc).
198 The second point is the `println!()` part. This is calling a Rust **macro**,
199 which is how metaprogramming is done in Rust. If it were a function instead, it
200 would look like this: `println()`. For our purposes, we don't need to worry
201 about this difference. Just know that sometimes, you'll see a `!`, and that
202 means that you're calling a macro instead of a normal function. One last thing
203 to mention: Rust's macros are significantly different than C macros, if you've
204 used those. Don't be scared of using macros. We'll get to the details
205 eventually, you'll just have to trust us for now.
207 Next, `"Hello, world"` is a **string**. Strings are a surprisingly complicated
208 topic in a systems programming language, and this is a **statically allocated**
209 string. We will talk more about different kinds of allocation later. We pass
210 this string as an argument to `println!`, which prints the string to the
213 Finally, the line ends with a semicolon (`;`). Rust is an **expression
214 oriented** language, which means that most things are expressions. The `;` is
215 used to indicate that this expression is over, and the next one is ready to
216 begin. Most lines of Rust code end with a `;`. We will cover this in-depth
217 later in the tutorial.
219 Finally, actually **compiling** and **running** our program. We can compile
220 with our compiler, `rustc`, by passing it the name of our source file:
223 $ rustc hello_world.rs
226 This is similar to `gcc` or `clang`, if you come from a C or C++ background. Rust
227 will output a binary executable. You can see it with `ls`:
231 hello_world hello_world.rs
238 hello_world.exe hello_world.rs
241 There are now two files: our source code, with the `.rs` extension, and the
242 executable (`hello_world.exe` on Windows, `hello_world` everywhere else)
245 $ ./hello_world # or hello_world.exe on Windows
248 This prints out our `Hello, world!` text to our terminal.
250 If you come from a dynamically typed language like Ruby, Python, or JavaScript,
251 you may not be used to these two steps being separate. Rust is an
252 **ahead-of-time compiled language**, which means that you can compile a
253 program, give it to someone else, and they don't need to have Rust installed.
254 If you give someone a `.rb` or `.py` or `.js` file, they need to have
255 Ruby/Python/JavaScript installed, but you just need one command to both compile
256 and run your program. Everything is a tradeoff in language design, and Rust has
259 Congratulations! You have officially written a Rust program. That makes you a
260 Rust programmer! Welcome.
262 Next, I'd like to introduce you to another tool, Cargo, which is used to write
263 real-world Rust programs. Just using `rustc` is nice for simple things, but as
264 your project grows, you'll want something to help you manage all of the options
265 that it has, and to make it easy to share your code with other people and
270 [Cargo](http://crates.io) is a tool that Rustaceans use to help manage their
271 Rust projects. Cargo is currently in an alpha state, just like Rust, and so it
272 is still a work in progress. However, it is already good enough to use for many
273 Rust projects, and so it is assumed that Rust projects will use Cargo from the
276 Cargo manages three things: building your code, downloading the dependencies
277 your code needs, and building the dependencies your code needs. At first, your
278 program doesn't have any dependencies, so we'll only be using the first part of
279 its functionality. Eventually, we'll add more. Since we started off by using
280 Cargo, it'll be easy to add later.
282 Let's convert Hello World to Cargo. The first thing we need to do to begin
283 using Cargo is to install Cargo. Luckily for us, the script we ran to install
284 Rust includes Cargo by default. If you installed Rust some other way, you may
285 want to [check the Cargo
286 README](https://github.com/rust-lang/cargo#installing-cargo-from-nightlies)
287 for specific instructions about installing it.
289 To Cargo-ify our project, we need to do two things: Make a `Cargo.toml`
290 configuration file, and put our source file in the right place. Let's
295 $ mv hello_world.rs src/hello_world.rs
298 Cargo expects your source files to live inside a `src` directory. That leaves
299 the top level for other things, like READMEs, licence information, and anything
300 not related to your code. Cargo helps us keep our projects nice and tidy. A
301 place for everything, and everything in its place.
303 Next, our configuration file:
309 Make sure to get this name right: you need the capital `C`!
318 authors = [ "someone@example.com" ]
325 This file is in the [TOML](https://github.com/toml-lang/toml) format. Let's let
326 it explain itself to you:
328 > TOML aims to be a minimal configuration file format that's easy to read due
329 > to obvious semantics. TOML is designed to map unambiguously to a hash table.
330 > TOML should be easy to parse into data structures in a wide variety of
333 TOML is very similar to INI, but with some extra goodies.
335 Anyway, there are two **table**s in this file: `package` and `bin`. The first
336 tells Cargo metadata about your package. The second tells Cargo that we're
337 interested in building a binary, not a library (though we could do both!), as
338 well as what it is named.
340 Once you have this file in place, we should be ready to build! Try this:
344 Compiling hello_world v0.1.0 (file:/home/yourname/projects/hello_world)
345 $ ./target/hello_world
349 Bam! We build our project with `cargo build`, and run it with
350 `./target/hello_world`. This hasn't bought us a whole lot over our simple use
351 of `rustc`, but think about the future: when our project has more than one
352 file, we would need to call `rustc` twice, and pass it a bunch of options to
353 tell it to build everything together. With Cargo, as our project grows, we can
354 just `cargo build` and it'll work the right way.
356 That's it! We've successfully built `hello_world` with Cargo. Even though our
357 program is simple, it's using much of the real tooling that you'll use for the
358 rest of your Rust career.
360 Next, we'll learn more about Rust itself, by starting to write a more complicated
361 program. We hope you want to do more with Rust than just print "Hello, world!"
365 Let's write a bigger program in Rust. We could just go through a laundry list
366 of Rust features, but that's boring. Instead, we'll learn more about how to
367 code in Rust by writing a few example projects.
369 For our first project, we'll implement a classic beginner programming problem:
370 the guessing game. Here's how it works: Our program will generate a random
371 integer between one and a hundred. It will then prompt us to enter a guess.
372 Upon entering our guess, it will tell us if we're too low or too high. Once we
373 guess correctly, it will congratulate us, and print the number of guesses we've
374 taken to the screen. Sound good? It sounds easy, but it'll end up showing off a
375 number of basic features of Rust.
379 Let's set up a new project. Go to your projects directory, and make a new
380 directory for the project, as well as a `src` directory for our code:
384 $ mkdir guessing_game
389 Great. Next, let's make a `Cargo.toml` file so Cargo knows how to build our
395 name = "guessing_game"
397 authors = [ "someone@example.com" ]
401 name = "guessing_game"
404 Finally, we need our source file. Let's just make it hello world for now, so we
405 can check that our setup works. In `src/guessing_game.rs`:
409 println!("Hello world!");
413 Let's make sure that worked:
417 Compiling guessing_game v0.1.0 (file:/home/you/projects/guessing_game)
421 Excellent! Open up your `src/guessing_game.rs` again. We'll be writing all of
422 our code in this file. The next section of the tutorial will show you how to
423 build multiple-file projects.
427 The first thing we'll learn about are 'variable bindings.' They look like this:
433 In many languages, this is called a 'variable.' But Rust's variable bindings
434 have a few tricks up their sleeves. Rust has a very powerful feature called
435 'pattern matching' that we'll get into detail with later, but the left
436 hand side of a `let` expression is a full pattern, not just a variable name.
437 This means we can do things like:
440 let (x, y) = (1i, 2i);
443 After this expression is evaluated, `x` will be one, and `y` will be two.
444 Patterns are really powerful, but this is about all we can do with them so far.
445 So let's just keep this in the back of our minds as we go forward.
447 By the way, in these examples, `i` indicates that the number is an integer.
449 Rust is a statically typed language, which means that we specify our types up
450 front. So why does our first example compile? Well, Rust has this thing called
451 "[Hindley-Milner type
452 inference](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindley%E2%80%93Milner_type_system)",
453 named after some really smart type theorists. If you clicked that link, don't
454 be scared: what this means for you is that Rust will attempt to infer the types
455 in your program, and it's pretty good at it. If it can infer the type, Rust
456 doesn't require you to actually type it out.
458 We can add the type if we want to. Types come after a colon (`:`):
464 If I asked you to read this out loud to the rest of the class, you'd say "`x`
465 is a binding with the type `int` and the value `five`."
467 By default, bindings are **immutable**. This code will not compile:
474 It will give you this error:
477 error: re-assignment of immutable variable `x`
482 If you want a binding to be mutable, you can use `mut`:
489 There is no single reason that bindings are immutable by default, but we can
490 think about it through one of Rust's primary focuses: safety. If you forget to
491 say `mut`, the compiler will catch it, and let you know that you have mutated
492 something you may not have cared to mutate. If bindings were mutable by
493 default, the compiler would not be able to tell you this. If you _did_ intend
494 mutation, then the solution is quite easy: add `mut`.
496 There are other good reasons to avoid mutable state when possible, but they're
497 out of the scope of this guide. In general, you can often avoid explicit
498 mutation, and so it is preferable in Rust. That said, sometimes, mutation is
499 what you need, so it's not verboten.
501 Let's get back to bindings. Rust variable bindings have one more aspect that
502 differs from other languages: bindings are required to be initialized with a
503 value before you're allowed to use it. If we try...
509 ...we'll get an error:
512 src/guessing_game.rs:2:9: 2:10 error: cannot determine a type for this local variable: unconstrained type
513 src/guessing_game.rs:2 let x;
517 Giving it a type will compile, though:
523 Let's try it out. Change your `src/guessing_game.rs` file to look like this:
529 println!("Hello world!");
533 You can use `cargo build` on the command line to build it. You'll get a warning,
534 but it will still print "Hello, world!":
537 Compiling guessing_game v0.1.0 (file:/home/you/projects/guessing_game)
538 src/guessing_game.rs:2:9: 2:10 warning: unused variable: `x`, #[warn(unused_variable)] on by default
539 src/guessing_game.rs:2 let x: int;
543 Rust warns us that we never use the variable binding, but since we never use it,
544 no harm, no foul. Things change if we try to actually use this `x`, however. Let's
545 do that. Change your program to look like this:
551 println!("The value of x is: {}", x);
555 And try to build it. You'll get an error:
559 Compiling guessing_game v0.1.0 (file:/home/you/projects/guessing_game)
560 src/guessing_game.rs:4:39: 4:40 error: use of possibly uninitialized variable: `x`
561 src/guessing_game.rs:4 println!("The value of x is: {}", x);
563 note: in expansion of format_args!
564 <std macros>:2:23: 2:77 note: expansion site
565 <std macros>:1:1: 3:2 note: in expansion of println!
566 src/guessing_game.rs:4:5: 4:42 note: expansion site
567 error: aborting due to previous error
568 Could not execute process `rustc src/guessing_game.rs --crate-type bin --out-dir /home/you/projects/guessing_game/target -L /home/you/projects/guessing_game/target -L /home/you/projects/guessing_game/target/deps` (status=101)
571 Rust will not let us use a value that has not been initialized. So why let us
572 declare a binding without initializing it? You'd think our first example would
573 have errored. Well, Rust is smarter than that. Before we get to that, let's talk
574 about this stuff we've added to `println!`.
576 If you include two curly braces (`{}`, some call them moustaches...) in your
577 string to print, Rust will interpret this as a request to interpolate some sort
578 of value. **String interpolation** is a computer science term that means "stick
579 in the middle of a string." We add a comma, and then `x`, to indicate that we
580 want `x` to be the value we're interpolating. The comma is used to separate
581 arguments we pass to functions and macros, if you're passing more than one.
583 When you just use the double curly braces, Rust will attempt to display the
584 value in a meaningful way by checking out its type. If you want to specify the
585 format in a more detailed manner, there are a [wide number of options
586 available](/std/fmt/index.html). Fow now, we'll just stick to the default:
587 integers aren't very complicated to print.
589 So, we've cleared up all of the confusion around bindings, with one exception:
590 why does Rust let us declare a variable binding without an initial value if we
591 must initialize the binding before we use it? And how does it know that we have
592 or have not initialized the binding? For that, we need to learn our next
597 Rust's take on `if` is not particularly complex, but it's much more like the
598 `if` you'll find in a dynamically typed language than in a more traditional
599 systems language. So let's talk about it, to make sure you grasp the nuances.
601 `if` is a specific form of a more general concept, the 'branch.' The name comes
602 from a branch in a tree: a decision point, where depending on a choice,
603 multiple paths can be taken.
605 In the case of `if`, there is one choice that leads down two paths:
611 println!("x is five!");
615 If we changed the value of `x` to something else, this line would not print.
616 More specifically, if the expression after the `if` evaluates to `true`, then
617 the block is executed. If it's `false`, then it is not.
619 If you want something to happen in the `false` case, use an `else`:
625 println!("x is five!");
627 println!("x is not five :(");
631 This is all pretty standard. However, you can also do this:
644 Which we can (and probably should) write like this:
649 let y = if x == 5i { 10i } else { 15i };
652 This reveals two interesting things about Rust: it is an expression-based
653 language, and semicolons are different than in other 'curly brace and
654 semicolon'-based languages. These two things are related.
656 ### Expressions vs. Statements
658 Rust is primarily an expression based language. There are only two kinds of
659 statements, and everything else is an expression.
661 So what's the difference? Expressions return a value, and statements do not.
662 In many languages, `if` is a statement, and therefore, `let x = if ...` would
663 make no sense. But in Rust, `if` is an expression, which means that it returns
664 a value. We can then use this value to initialize the binding.
666 Speaking of which, bindings are a kind of the first of Rust's two statements.
667 The proper name is a **declaration statement**. So far, `let` is the only kind
668 of declaration statement we've seen. Let's talk about that some more.
670 In some languages, variable bindings can be written as expressions, not just
671 statements. Like Ruby:
677 In Rust, however, using `let` to introduce a binding is _not_ an expression. The
678 following will produce a compile-time error:
681 let x = (let y = 5i); // found `let` in ident position
684 The compiler is telling us here that it was expecting to see the beginning of
685 an expression, and a `let` can only begin a statement, not an expression.
687 However, assigning to a variable binding is an expression:
694 In this case, we have an assignment expression (`x = 5`) whose value is
695 being used as part of a `let` declaration statement (`let y = ...`).
697 The second kind of statement in Rust is the **expression statement**. Its
698 purpose is to turn any expression into a statement. In practical terms, Rust's
699 grammar expects statements to follow other statements. This means that you use
700 semicolons to separate expressions from each other. This means that Rust
701 looks a lot like most other languages that require you to use semicolons
702 at the end of every line, and you will see semicolons at the end of almost
703 every line of Rust code you see.
705 What is this exception that makes us say 'almost?' You saw it already, in this
711 let y: int = if x == 5i { 10i } else { 15i };
714 Note that I've added the type annotation to `y`, to specify explicitly that I
715 want `y` to be an integer.
717 This is not the same as this, which won't compile:
722 let y: int = if x == 5 { 10i; } else { 15i; };
725 Note the semicolons after the 10 and 15. Rust will give us the following error:
728 error: mismatched types: expected `int` but found `()` (expected int but found ())
731 We expected an integer, but we got `()`. `()` is pronounced 'unit', and is a
732 special type in Rust's type system. `()` is different than `null` in other
733 languages, because `()` is distinct from other types. For example, in C, `null`
734 is a valid value for a variable of type `int`. In Rust, `()` is _not_ a valid
735 value for a variable of type `int`. It's only a valid value for variables of
736 the type `()`, which aren't very useful. Remember how we said statements don't
737 return a value? Well, that's the purpose of unit in this case. The semicolon
738 turns any expression into a statement by throwing away its value and returning
741 There's one more time in which you won't see a semicolon at the end of a line
742 of Rust code. For that, we'll need our next concept: functions.
746 You've already seen one function so far, the `main` function:
753 This is the simplest possible function declaration. As we mentioned before,
754 `fn` says 'this is a function,' followed by the name, some parenthesis because
755 this function takes no arguments, and then some curly braces to indicate the
756 body. Here's a function named `foo`:
763 So, what about taking arguments? Here's a function that prints a number:
766 fn print_number(x: int) {
767 println!("x is: {}", x);
771 Here's a complete program that uses `print_number`:
778 fn print_number(x: int) {
779 println!("x is: {}", x);
783 As you can see, function arguments work very similar to `let` declarations:
784 you add a type to the argument name, after a colon.
786 Here's a complete program that adds two numbers together and prints them:
793 fn print_sum(x: int, y: int) {
794 println!("sum is: {}", x + y);
798 You separate arguments with a comma, both when you call the function, as well
799 as when you declare it.
801 Unlike `let`, you _must_ declare the types of function arguments. This does
805 fn print_number(x, y) {
806 println!("x is: {}", x + y);
813 hello.rs:5:18: 5:19 error: expected `:` but found `,`
814 hello.rs:5 fn print_number(x, y) {
817 This is a deliberate design decision. While full-program inference is possible,
818 languages which have it, like Haskell, often suggest that documenting your
819 types explicitly is a best-practice. We agree that forcing functions to declare
820 types while allowing for inference inside of function bodies is a wonderful
821 compromise between full inference and no inference.
823 What about returning a value? Here's a function that adds one to an integer:
826 fn add_one(x: int) -> int {
831 Rust functions return exactly one value, and you declare the type after an
832 'arrow', which is a dash (`-`) followed by a greater-than sign (`>`).
834 You'll note the lack of a semicolon here. If we added it in:
837 fn add_one(x: int) -> int {
842 We would get an error:
845 error: not all control paths return a value
846 fn add_one(x: int) -> int {
850 note: consider removing this semicolon:
855 Remember our earlier discussions about semicolons and `()`? Our function claims
856 to return an `int`, but with a semicolon, it would return `()` instead. Rust
857 realizes this probably isn't what we want, and suggests removing the semicolon.
859 This is very much like our `if` statement before: the result of the block
860 (`{}`) is the value of the expression. Other expression-oriented languages,
861 such as Ruby, work like this, but it's a bit unusual in the systems programming
862 world. When people first learn about this, they usually assume that it
863 introduces bugs. But because Rust's type system is so strong, and because unit
864 is its own unique type, we have never seen an issue where adding or removing a
865 semicolon in a return position would cause a bug.
867 But what about early returns? Rust does have a keyword for that, `return`:
870 fn foo(x: int) -> int {
871 if x < 5 { return x; }
877 Using a `return` as the last line of a function works, but is considered poor
881 fn foo(x: int) -> int {
882 if x < 5 { return x; }
888 There are some additional ways to define functions, but they involve features
889 that we haven't learned about yet, so let's just leave it at that for now.
894 Now that we have some functions, it's a good idea to learn about comments.
895 Comments are notes that you leave to other programmers to help explain things
896 about your code. The compiler mostly ignores them.
898 Rust has two kinds of comments that you should care about: **line comment**s
899 and **doc comment**s.
902 // Line comments are anything after '//' and extend to the end of the line.
904 let x = 5i; // this is also a line comment.
906 // If you have a long explanation for something, you can put line comments next
907 // to each other. Put a space between the // and your comment so that it's
911 The other kind of comment is a doc comment. Doc comments use `///` instead of
912 `//`, and support Markdown notation inside:
915 /// `hello` is a function that prints a greeting that is personalized based on
920 /// * `name` - The name of the person you'd like to greet.
925 /// let name = "Steve";
926 /// hello(name); // prints "Hello, Steve!"
928 fn hello(name: &str) {
929 println!("Hello, {}!", name);
933 When writing doc comments, adding sections for any arguments, return values,
934 and providing some examples of usage is very, very helpful.
936 You can use the `rustdoc` tool to generate HTML documentation from these doc
937 comments. We will talk more about `rustdoc` when we get to modules, as
938 generally, you want to export documentation for a full module.
940 ## Compound Data Types
942 Rust, like many programming languages, has a number of different data types
943 that are built-in. You've already done some simple work with integers and
944 strings, but next, let's talk about some more complicated ways of storing data.
948 The first compound data type we're going to talk about are called **tuple**s.
949 Tuples are an ordered list of a fixed size. Like this:
952 let x = (1i, "hello");
955 The parenthesis and commas form this two-length tuple. Here's the same code, but
956 with the type annotated:
959 let x: (int, &str) = (1, "hello");
962 As you can see, the type of a tuple looks just like the tuple, but with each
963 position having a type name rather than the value. Careful readers will also
964 note that tuples are heterogeneous: we have an `int` and a `&str` in this tuple.
965 You haven't seen `&str` as a type before, and we'll discuss the details of
966 strings later. In systems programming languages, strings are a bit more complex
967 than in other languages. For now, just read `&str` as "a string slice," and
968 we'll learn more soon.
970 You can access the fields in a tuple through a **destructuring let**. Here's
974 let (x, y, z) = (1i, 2i, 3i);
976 println!("x is {}", x);
979 Remember before when I said the left hand side of a `let` statement was more
980 powerful than just assigning a binding? Here we are. We can put a pattern on
981 the left hand side of the `let`, and if it matches up to the right hand side,
982 we can assign multiple bindings at once. In this case, `let` 'destructures,'
983 or 'breaks up,' the tuple, and assigns the bits to three bindings.
985 This pattern is very powerful, and we'll see it repeated more later.
987 The last thing to say about tuples is that they are only equivalent if
988 the arity, types, and values are all identical.
991 let x = (1i, 2i, 3i);
992 let y = (2i, 3i, 4i);
1001 This will print `no`, as the values aren't equal.
1003 One other use of tuples is to return multiple values from a function:
1006 fn next_two(x: int) -> (int, int) { (x + 1i, x + 2i) }
1009 let (x, y) = next_two(5i);
1010 println!("x, y = {}, {}", x, y);
1014 Even though Rust functions can only return one value, a tuple _is_ one value,
1015 that happens to be made up of two. You can also see in this example how you
1016 can destructure a pattern returned by a function, as well.
1018 Tuples are a very simple data structure, and so are not often what you want.
1019 Let's move on to their bigger sibling, structs.
1023 A struct is another form of a 'record type,' just like a tuple. There's a
1024 difference: structs give each element that they contain a name, called a
1025 'field' or a 'member.' Check it out:
1034 let origin = Point { x: 0i, y: 0i };
1036 println!("The origin is at ({}, {})", origin.x, origin.y);
1040 There's a lot going on here, so let's break it down. We declare a struct with
1041 the `struct` keyword, and then with a name. By convention, structs begin with a
1042 capital letter and are also camel cased: `PointInSpace`, not `Point_In_Space`.
1044 We can create an instance of our struct via `let`, as usual, but we use a `key:
1045 value` style syntax to set each field. The order doesn't need to be the same as
1046 in the original declaration.
1048 Finally, because fields have names, we can access the field through dot
1049 notation: `origin.x`.
1051 The values in structs are immutable, like other bindings in Rust. However, you
1052 can use `mut` to make them mutable:
1061 let mut point = Point { x: 0i, y: 0i };
1065 println!("The point is at ({}, {})", point.x, point.y);
1069 This will print `The point is at (5, 0)`.
1071 ### Tuple Structs and Newtypes
1073 Rust has another data type that's like a hybrid between a tuple and a struct,
1074 called a **tuple struct**. Tuple structs do have a name, but their fields
1079 struct Color(int, int, int);
1080 struct Point(int, int, int);
1083 These two will not be equal, even if they have the same values:
1086 let black = Color(0, 0, 0);
1087 let origin = Point(0, 0, 0);
1090 It is almost always better to use a struct than a tuple struct. We would write
1091 `Color` and `Point` like this instead:
1107 Now, we have actual names, rather than positions. Good names are important,
1108 and with a struct, we have actual names.
1110 There _is_ one case when a tuple struct is very useful, though, and that's a
1111 tuple struct with only one element. We call this a 'newtype,' because it lets
1112 you create a new type that's a synonym for another one:
1116 struct Centimeters(int);
1118 let length = Inches(10);
1120 let Inches(integer_length) = length;
1121 println!("length is {} inches", integer_length);
1124 As you can see here, you can extract the inner integer type through a
1125 destructuring `let`.
1129 Finally, Rust has a "sum type", an **enum**. Enums are an incredibly useful
1130 feature of Rust, and are used throughout the standard library. Enums look
1141 This is an enum that is provided by the Rust standard library. An `Ordering`
1142 can only be _one_ of `Less`, `Equal`, or `Greater` at any given time. Here's
1149 let ordering = x.cmp(&y);
1151 if ordering == Less {
1153 } else if ordering == Greater {
1154 println!("greater");
1155 } else if ordering == Equal {
1160 `cmp` is a function that compares two things, and returns an `Ordering`. The
1161 call looks a little bit strange: rather than `cmp(x, y)`, we say `x.cmp(&y)`.
1162 We haven't covered methods and references yet, so it should look a little bit
1163 foreign. Right now, just pretend it says `cmp(x, y)`, and we'll get to those
1166 The `ordering` variable has the type `Ordering`, and so contains one of the
1167 three values. We can then do a bunch of `if`/`else` comparisons to check
1170 However, repeated `if`/`else` comparisons get quite tedious. Rust has a feature
1171 that not only makes them nicer to read, but also makes sure that you never
1172 miss a case. Before we get to that, though, let's talk about another kind of
1173 enum: one with values.
1175 This enum has two variants, one of which has a value.:
1188 Value(n) => println!("x is {:d}", n),
1189 Missing => println!("x is missing!"),
1193 Value(n) => println!("y is {:d}", n),
1194 Missing => println!("y is missing!"),
1199 This enum represents an `int` that we may or may not have. In the `Missing`
1200 case, we have no value, but in the `Value` case, we do. This enum is specific
1201 to `int`s, though. We can make it usable by any type, but we haven't quite
1204 You can have any number of values in an enum:
1207 enum OptionalColor {
1208 Color(int, int, int),
1213 Enums with values are quite useful, but as I mentioned, they're even more
1214 useful when they're generic across types. But before we get to generics, let's
1215 talk about how to fix this big `if`/`else` statements we've been writing. We'll
1216 do that with `match`.
1220 Often, a simple `if`/`else` isn't enough, because you have more than two
1221 possible options. And `else` conditions can get incredibly complicated. So
1222 what's the solution?
1224 Rust has a keyword, `match`, that allows you to replace complicated `if`/`else`
1225 groupings with something more powerful. Check it out:
1231 1 => println!("one"),
1232 2 => println!("two"),
1233 3 => println!("three"),
1234 4 => println!("four"),
1235 5 => println!("five"),
1236 _ => println!("something else"),
1240 `match` takes an expression, and then branches based on its value. Each 'arm' of
1241 the branch is of the form `val => expression`. When the value matches, that arm's
1242 expression will be evaluated. It's called `match` because of the term 'pattern
1243 matching,' which `match` is an implementation of.
1245 So what's the big advantage here? Well, there are a few. First of all, `match`
1246 does 'exhaustiveness checking.' Do you see that last arm, the one with the
1247 underscore (`_`)? If we remove that arm, Rust will give us an error:
1250 error: non-exhaustive patterns: `_` not covered
1253 In other words, Rust is trying to tell us we forgot a value. Because `x` is an
1254 integer, Rust knows that it can have a number of different values. For example,
1255 `6i`. But without the `_`, there is no arm that could match, and so Rust refuses
1256 to compile. `_` is sort of like a catch-all arm. If none of the other arms match,
1257 the arm with `_` will. And since we have this catch-all arm, we now have an arm
1258 for every possible value of `x`, and so our program will now compile.
1260 `match` statements also destructure enums, as well. Remember this code from the
1267 let ordering = x.cmp(&y);
1269 if ordering == Less {
1271 } else if ordering == Greater {
1272 println!("greater");
1273 } else if ordering == Equal {
1278 We can re-write this as a `match`:
1285 Less => println!("less"),
1286 Greater => println!("greater"),
1287 Equal => println!("equal"),
1291 This version has way less noise, and it also checks exhaustively to make sure
1292 that we have covered all possible variants of `Ordering`. With our `if`/`else`
1293 version, if we had forgotten the `Greater` case, for example, our program would
1294 have happily compiled. If we forget in the `match`, it will not. Rust helps us
1295 make sure to cover all of our bases.
1297 `match` is also an expression, which means we can use it on the right hand side
1298 of a `let` binding. We could also implement the previous line like this:
1304 let result = match x.cmp(&y) {
1306 Greater => "greater",
1310 println!("{}", result);
1313 In this case, it doesn't make a lot of sense, as we are just making a temporary
1314 string where we don't need to, but sometimes, it's a nice pattern.
1318 Looping is the last basic construct that we haven't learned yet in Rust. Rust has
1319 two main looping constructs: `for` and `while`.
1323 The `for` loop is used to loop a particular number of times. Rust's `for` loops
1324 work a bit differently than in other systems languages, however. Rust's `for`
1325 loop doesn't look like this C `for` loop:
1328 for (x = 0; x < 10; x++) {
1329 printf( "%d\n", x );
1336 for x in range(0i, 10i) {
1337 println!("{:d}", x);
1341 In slightly more abstract terms,
1344 for var in expression {
1349 The expression is an iterator, which we will discuss in more depth later in the
1350 guide. The iterator gives back a series of elements. Each element is one
1351 iteration of the loop. That value is then bound to the name `var`, which is
1352 valid for the loop body. Once the body is over, the next value is fetched from
1353 the iterator, and we loop another time. When there are no more values, the
1356 In our example, the `range` function is a function, provided by Rust, that
1357 takes a start and an end position, and gives an iterator over those values. The
1358 upper bound is exclusive, though, so our loop will print `0` through `9`, not
1361 Rust does not have the "C style" `for` loop on purpose. Manually controlling
1362 each element of the loop is complicated and error prone, even for experienced C
1363 developers. There's an old joke that goes, "There are two hard problems in
1364 computer science: naming things, cache invalidation, and off-by-one errors."
1365 The joke, of course, being that the setup says "two hard problems" but then
1366 lists three things. This happens quite a bit with "C style" `for` loops.
1368 We'll talk more about `for` when we cover **vector**s, later in the Guide.
1372 The other kind of looping construct in Rust is the `while` loop. It looks like
1377 let mut done = false;
1382 if x % 5 == 0 { done = true; }
1386 `while` loops are the correct choice when you're not sure how many times
1389 If you need an infinite loop, you may be tempted to write this:
1395 Rust has a dedicated keyword, `loop`, to handle this case:
1401 Rust's control-flow analysis treats this construct differently than a
1402 `while true`, since we know that it will always loop. The details of what
1403 that _means_ aren't super important to understand at this stage, but in
1404 general, the more information we can give to the compiler, the better it
1405 can do with safety and code generation. So you should always prefer
1406 `loop` when you plan to loop infinitely.
1408 ### Ending iteration early
1410 Let's take a look at that `while` loop we had earlier:
1414 let mut done = false;
1419 if x % 5 == 0 { done = true; }
1423 We had to keep a dedicated `mut` boolean variable binding, `done`, to know
1424 when we should skip out of the loop. Rust has two keywords to help us with
1425 modifying iteration: `break` and `continue`.
1427 In this case, we can write the loop in a better way with `break`:
1435 if x % 5 == 0 { break; }
1439 We now loop forever with `loop`, and use `break` to break out early.
1441 `continue` is similar, but instead of ending the loop, goes to the next
1442 iteration: This will only print the odd numbers:
1445 for x in range(0i, 10i) {
1446 if x % 2 == 0 { continue; }
1448 println!("{:d}", x);
1452 Both `continue` and `break` are valid in both kinds of loops.
1454 We have now learned all of the most basic Rust concepts. We're ready to start
1455 building our guessing game, but we need to know how to do one last thing first:
1456 get input from the keyboard. You can't have a guessing game without the ability
1461 Getting input from the keyboard is pretty easy, but uses some things
1462 we haven't seen before. Here's a simple program that reads some input,
1463 and then prints it back out:
1467 println!("Type something!");
1469 let input = std::io::stdin().read_line().ok().expect("Failed to read line");
1471 println!("{}", input);
1475 Let's go over these chunks, one by one:
1481 This calls a function, `stdin()`, that lives inside the `std::io` module. As
1482 you can imagine, everything in `std` is provided by Rust, the 'standard
1483 library.' We'll talk more about the module system later.
1485 Since writing the fully qualified name all the time is annoying, we can use
1486 the `use` statement to import it in:
1494 However, it's considered better practice to not import individual functions, but
1495 to import the module, and only use one level of qualification:
1503 Let's update our example to use this style:
1509 println!("Type something!");
1511 let input = io::stdin().read_line().ok().expect("Failed to read line");
1513 println!("{}", input);
1523 The `read_line()` method can be called on the result of `stdin()` to return
1524 a full line of input. Nice and easy.
1527 .ok().expect("Failed to read line");
1530 Here's the thing: reading a line from standard input could fail. For example,
1531 if this program isn't running in a terminal, but is running as part of a cron
1532 job, or some other context where there's no standard input. So Rust expects us
1533 to handle this case. Given that we plan on always running this program in a
1534 terminal, we use the `ok()` method to tell Rust that we're expecting everything
1535 to be just peachy, and the `expect()` method on that result to give an error
1536 message if our expectation goes wrong.
1538 We will cover the exact details of how all of this works later in the Guide.
1539 For now, this is all you need.
1541 With long lines like this, Rust gives you some flexibility with the whitespace.
1542 We _could_ write the example like this:
1548 println!("Type something!");
1550 let input = io::stdin()
1553 .expect("Failed to read line");
1555 println!("{}", input);
1559 Sometimes, this makes things more readable. Sometimes, less. Use your judgement
1562 That's all you need to get basic input from the standard input! It's not too
1563 complicated, but there are a number of small parts.
1565 ## Guessing Game: complete
1567 At this point, you have successfully built the Guessing Game! Congratulations!
1568 For reference, [We've placed the sample code on
1569 GitHub](https://github.com/steveklabnik/guessing_game).
1571 You've now learned the basic syntax of Rust. All of this is relatively close to
1572 various other programming languages you have used in the past. These
1573 fundamental syntactical and semantic elements will form the foundation for the
1574 rest of your Rust education.
1576 Now that you're an expert at the basics, it's time to learn about some of
1577 Rust's more unique features.
1589 ## Crates and Modules
1598 ## Operators and built-in Traits
1600 ## Ownership and Lifetimes