Structs, Enums and Implementation

There is no class and no inheritance. Rust has only struct, impl and trait.

Struct

A struct is like an object's data attribute.

It's possible for structs to store references to data owned by something else, but to do so require the use of lifetimes.

#![allow(unused)]
fn main() {
struct Rectangle {
	width: u32,
	height: u32,
}

let rect = Rectangle { width: 3, height: 2 };
rect.width; // => 3
}

Tuple Structs

Tuple structs are useful when you want to give the whole tuple a name and make the tuple be a different type from other tuples, and naming each field as in a regular struct would be verbose or redundant.

#![allow(unused)]
fn main() {
struct Color(i32, i32, i32);
let black = Color(0, 0, 0);
}

Unit-Like Structs

You can also define structs that don't have any fields! These are called unit-like structs because they behave similarly to (), the unit type. Unit-like structs can be useful in situations in which you need to implement a trait on some type but don't have any data that you want to store in the type itself.

Method Syntax: Implementation

#![allow(unused)]
fn main() {
struct Rectangle {
	width: u32,
	height: u32,
}

impl Rectangle {
	fn area(&self) -> u32 {
		self.width * self.height
	}
}

let rect = Rectangle { width: 30, height: 50 };
println!("The are is {} square pixels.", rect.area());
}

Methods are similar to functions. To define the function within the context of Rectangle, we start an impl block. Then we move the area function within the impl curly brackets.

We can use the method syntax to call the area method on our Rectangle instance.

In the signature for area we use &self instead of rectangle: &Rectangle because Rust knows the type of self is Rectangle due to this method's being inside the impl Rectangle context. Methods can take multiple parameters that we add to the signature after the self parameter, and those parameters work just like parameters in functions.

Each struct is allowed to have multiple impl blocks.

Associated functions

Another useful feature of impl blocks is that we are allowed to define functions within impl blocks that do not take self as a parameter. These are called associated functions because they are associated with the struct. They are called after the :: syntax.

They're still functions, not methods, because they don't have an instance of the struct to work with, like String::from. An associated function is implemented on a type, rather than on a particular instance of a Rectangle. Some language call this a static method.

Associated functions are often used for constructors that will return a new instance of the struct. A common usage in the standard library and in the community is to define a new function. You can use the field init shorthand syntax to initialize a struct with variables.

#![allow(unused)]
fn main() {
impl Rectangle {
	fn new(width: u32, height: u32) -> Self {
		Rectangle { width, height }
	}
}

let rect = Rectangle::new(30, 20);
}

Rest and Destructuring

The rest operator .. allows to fill the holes. It is called the struct update syntax.

The rest must be the last and not be followed by a comma.

#![allow(unused)]
fn main() {
#[derive(Debug)]
struct Vec2 {
	x: f32,
	y: f32
}

// Rest
let v1 = Vec2 { x: 1.0, y: 3.0 };
let v2 = Vec2 { y: 2.0, ..v1 };

// Destructuring a tuple
let (a, b) = (3, 7);

// Destructuring with Rest
let Vec2 { x,..} = v2;

println!("{:?}, {:?}, {:?}", v2, b, x) // => Vec2 { x: 1.0, y: 2.0 }, 7, 1.0
}

Throw away a value

During destructuring, if you don't want to deal with all values you can omit some with an underscore. In use with the rest operator .. it's very easy to just export what you need.

#![allow(unused)]
fn main() {
let _ = get_stuff(); // throws away the returned value

// The value 3 and the rest will not be assigned to a variable
let (_, b, ..) = (3, 7, 14, 45);
let (width, _) = get_size();
}

Function parameters

Function parameters can also be pattern.

fn print_coordinates(&(x, y): &(i32, i32)) {
    println!("Current location: ({}, {})", x, y);
}

fn main() {
    let point = (3, 5);
    print_coordinates(&point);
}

Enums

Rust's enums are most similar to algebraic data types in functional languages. Note that the variants of the enum are namespaced (::) under its identifier.

We can put data directly into each enum variant. You can put any kind of data inside an enum variant: strings, numeric types, or struct, for example. You can even include another enum.

#![allow(unused)]
fn main() {
enum IpAddr {
	V4(u8, u8, u8, u8),
	V6(String),
}

let home = IpAddr::V4(127, 0, 0, 1);
let loopback = IpAddr::V6(String::from("::1"));
}

The Billion Dollars Mistake

The problem with null values is that if you try to use a null value as a not-null value, you will get an error of some kind. As such, Rust does not have nulls, but it does have an enum that can encode the concept of a value being present or absent.

It is replaced by the Option<T> enumeration. The variants of Option are Some and None. The None variant represents no value while Some can hold one piece of data of any type.

#![allow(unused)]
fn main() {
enum Option<T> {
	Some(T),
	None,
}
}

If we use None rather that Some, we need to tell Rust what type of Option<T> we have.

#![allow(unused)]
fn main() {
let val1: Option<i32> = None;
let val2: Option<_> = Some(32);

println!("{:?}, {:?}", val1, val2);
}

Because Option<T> and T (where T can be any type) are different types, the compiler won't let us use an Option<T> value as if it were definitely a valid value.

#![allow(unused)]
fn main() {
let x: i8 = 5;
let y: Option<i8> = Some(5);

let sum = x + y;
//          ^ no implementation for `i8 + Option<i8>`
}

Everywhere that a value has a type that is not an Option<T>, you can safely assume that the value is not null.

Error management

Rust doesn't have exceptions. Instead, it has the type Result<T, E> for recoverable errors and the panic! macro that stops execution when the program encounters an unrecoverable error.

Result is, like Option, also an enumeration. For Result<T, E>, the variants are Ok<T> and Err<E>. The Ok variant indicates the operation was successful, and inside Ok is the successfully generated value. The Err variant means the operation failed, and Err contains information about how or why the operation failed.

#![allow(unused)]
fn main() {
use std::fs::File;

let f = File::open("hello.txt");
let f = match f {
	Ok(file) => file,
	Err(error) => {
		panic!("Problem opening the file: {:?}", error)
	}
}
}

Shortcuts for Panic on Error: unwrap and expect

Using match can be a bit verbose. The Result<T, E> type has many helper methods.

One of those method is called unwrap. If the Result value is the Ok variant, unwrap will return the value inside the Ok. If the Result is the Err variant, unwrap will call the panic! macro.

#![allow(unused)]
fn main() {
let f = File::open("hello.txt").unwrap();
}

Another method, expect, which is similar to unwrap, lets us also choose the panic! error message.

#![allow(unused)]
fn main() {
let f = File::open("hello.txt").expect("Failed to open hello.txt");
}

It would be appropriate to call unwrap when you have some other logic that ensures the Result will have an Ok value, but the logic isn't something the compiler understands.

Propagating Errors

This pattern of propagating errors is so common in Rust that Rust provides the question mark operator ? to make this easier. Error values that have the ? operator called on them go through the from function, defined in the From trait in the standard library, which is used to convert errors from one type into another.

The ? operator eliminates a lot of boilerplate and makes this function's implementation simpler. We could even shorten the code further by chaining method calls immediately after the ?.

#![allow(unused)]
fn main() {
fn read_username_from_file() -> Result<String, io::error> {
	let mut s = String::new();

	File::open("hello.txt")?.read_to_string(&mut s)?;

	Ok(s);
}
}

The ? operator can only be used in functions that have a return type of Result.

use std::error::Error;
use std::fs::File;

fn main() -> Result<(), Box<dyn Error>> {
	let f = File::open("hello.txt")?;

	Ok(());
}

The Box<dyn Error> type is called a trait object. For now, you can read Box<dyn Error> to mean "any kind of error".