A recent Stack Overflow survey revealed that many developers love Rust and want to continue using it. This is a staggering number. What’s the best thing about Rust? This article focuses on the best parts of Rust, a C-like programming language. It also demonstrates why it should be your following language to learn.
Rust and its history
Let’s begin with some history. Rust is a new language relative to its predecessor C (which preceded it by 38 years), but its genealogy allows for its multiparadigm approach. Rust can be described as a C-like language. However, its other features create advantages over its predecessors (see Figure 1).
First, Rust heavily influences Cyclone, a safe and imperative C language. It also includes some object-oriented features of C++. It also incorporates functional features from languages such as Haskell or OCaml. It is a C-like programming language that supports multiparadigm programming (imperative, practical, and object-oriented).
Rust: Key concepts
Rust is rich in features, but developers have different needs. These concepts make Rust practical learning, and I will show you how to get Rust source.
This program is similar to C and defines a main function. It is the program’s designated entry point (every program has one). The fn keyword is used to determine the position. An optional set of parameters are placed within parentheses ( ). The process is delineated by the curly braces ( and). This function consists of a call to println macro that emits formatted text on the console ( STDOUT), as specified by the string parameter.
Rust has many exciting features that are worth learning. Modules for reusability and memory safety and guarantees (safe and unsafe operations), unrecoverable or recoverable error handling, concurrency support, and complex data types (called collection) are just a few concepts you’ll find in Rust.
Reusable code via modules
Rust makes it possible to organize your code in a way that encourages its reuse. This organization is achieved by using modules. These modules contain functions, structures, and even other modules. You can either make the modules public (open to module users) or private (only used within the module and not the module users directly — at the very least. Modules organize code in a package that others can use.
To create modules, you can use three keywords. Modify the visibility of elements within modules by using three keywords.
The mod keyword creates an entirely new module
You can use the use keyword to access the module (expose definitions into the scope to use them).
The pub keyword makes elements in the module public (otherwise, they would be private).
Listing 2 gives an example. The first step is to create a new module called a bit, which contains three functions. The first function, pos, is private and takes 32 arguments. It returns a 32 (as indicated with the -> Arrow), and one value shifted a left bit. A return keyword does not need to be used here. Two public functions call this value (note the pub keyword). They are decimal and hex. These functions call the private pos function and print the bit position in decimal (or hexadecimal) format. It then declares a main operation that calls the bits modules’ two public functions. The output is shown as comments at the end.
Safety checks for cleaner codes
The Rust compiler enforces memory security guarantees and other checks that make the programming language safer (unlike C, which can be dangerous). Rust doesn’t allow you to dangle pointers or use an object once it has been released. These features are part of Rust’s core language. It is essential in embedded development fields to place structures at addresses that represent a set of hardware registers.
Rust has an unsafe key that you can use to disable compilation errors. The unsafe keyword allows you to create a dangerous block, as shown in Listing 3. This example declares an unmountable variable x and then points to raw. To de-reference raw, which in this example would print 1, I use the unsafe keywords to allow this operation. This would otherwise be flagged during compilation.
The unsafe keyword can be applied to both functions and blocks of code within Rust functions. This keyword is used to create bindings to nonRust parts. Rust is helpful for embedded programming and operating system development.
Better error handling
No matter what programming language you use, errors happen. Rust has two types of mistakes: recoverable and unrecoverable.
Unrecoverable errors
The Rust panic function is very similar to C’s assert macro. It produces output that can debug problems and stop the execution from becoming more severe. The panic! The function can be found in. Its executable Result is in the comments.
Recoverable errors
Programming is all about handling recoverable errors. Rust has a great feature to check for errors. This feature is shown in the context of a file operation. The File:.open function returns a type called Result. T and E are generic type parameters. In this context, they represent std.:fs: File and error. If File::open is called and there has been no error (E is OK), T will be the return type (std.:fs; File). If an error occurs, e will indicate the error type (using the std.:io: Error). To omit the warning generated by the compiler, my file variable _f uses an underscore.
The result enum makes it easier to recover errors in Rust. The match can also simplify them. Also, notice in this example that there is no File operation::close operation. The file is automatically closed once the scope of _f has ended.
Support for threads and concurrency
Concurrency can be fraught with problems (data races, deadlocks, and others). Rust allows you to create threads using your native operating system. However, it also attempts to reduce the adverse effects of threading. Rust supports message passing, which allows cables to communicate (via send or receive) as well as locking through mutes. Rust enables a thread to borrow value. This gives it ownership and transfers the value’s right to another line. Rust allows for memory safety and concurrency with no data races.