In this Blog Post I go over getting started with Rustlang

Rust is a systems programming language that runs blazingly fast, prevents segfaults, and guarantees thread safety.

Installing Rust in Mac OS X / Linux

To install Rust in Linux and Mac OS X run the following command:

curl https://sh.rustup.rs -sSf | sh

For other installation methods please read the following documentation

Add the cargo binaries to your path by adding the following entry in ~/.profile, ~/.bash_profile ~/.bashrc, ~/.zshrc:

echo "export PATH="$HOME/.cargo/bin:$PATH"" >> ~/.zshrc

Note here that I appended this using >> to ~/.zshrc but you may choose ~/.bashrc or another file.

Installing Rust in Windows

On Windows, go to install and follow the instructions for installing Rust.

You will need to install C++ build tools for Visual Studio 2013 or later here but it is best to just install Visual Studio Build Tools

The tools are in the Other Tools and Frameworks section which looks like this:

Check Rust Installation

If Rust is installed then you should be able to run the following command in your terminal windows:

rustc --version
rustc 1.26.2 (594fb253c 2018-06-01)

Updating Rustlang

In order to update the rust binaries you need to run the following command:

rustup update

Now when we run the --version options with rustc a new version should be reported if the update found a new version:

rustc --version
rustc 1.28.0 (9634041f0 2018-07-30)

Viewing Local Documentation

In order to see local documentation you can run the following command:

rustup doc

Cargo Package Manager

Rust comes with a powerful package manager called cargo.

You can create new rust packages by using the cargo package manager.

The command you use is: cargo new with options and provide a name

Create a new binary template package

If you want to create a new rust binary template application then run the following command:

cargo new PACKAGE_NAME --bin

Create a new library template package

If you want to create a new rust library template application then run the following command:

cargo new PACKAGE_NAME --lib

The contents of a new binary template package

When you create a new binary application cargo will create the following files:

Notice that the following files were created:

• Cargo.lock
  • This file locks your dependencies
• Cargo.toml
  • This file will have basic metadata for the rust package and dependencies
• src directory
  • main.rs
    • This will be main program for the application

Contents of Cargo.toml:

[package]
name = "hello-world"
version = "0.1.0"
authors = ["Jean-Marcel Belmont <[email protected]>"]

[dependencies]

Contents of src/main.rs:

fn main() {
    println!("Hello, world!");
}

Build Rust package

In order to build the rust package you can run the following command:

This command generates the target directory with the following content:

Running Rust package

You could run rust packages by issuing the following command:

cargo run

This will build and run the rust package.

Check the Rust package for build issues

You can use the cargo check command to see if your package will build but it will not create an executable.

Running tests with Cargo

You can easily run tests by using the cargo test command in the root of your project.

Whenever you create a new library it will stub out a test for you in src/lib.rs:

#[cfg(test)]
mod tests {
    #[test]
    fn it_works() {
        assert_eq!(2 + 2, 4);
    }
}

Notice here that there is an annotation of #[cfg(test)] for the tests module and #[test] for the test case.

Resources to learn Rustlang

Arguably the best resource to learn Rust is the Official Rust Book.

The Rust Book will walk you through each and every aspect of the Rust Language so please read it!

Read the Standard Library

Another way to learn Rust well is to read the Standard Library Here

You should also read A tour of the standard library which will list all the primitive types, modules, and macros in Rust.

Using the Rust Playground

Much like Golang has a playground so does Rust.

Here is a link to the Rust Playground that uses Rust nightly and has debugging mode enabled Here

Community Links

Check out all the community related information Here

If you like this Blog Post please follow me at jbelmont at Github