Rust 0.10
46867cc3

Rust Cheatsheet

1 How do I convert X to Y?

Int to string

Use ToStr.

let x: int = 42;
let y: ~str = x.to_str();

String to int

Use FromStr, and its helper function, from_str.

let x: Option<int> = from_str("42");
let y: int = x.unwrap();

Int to string, in non-base-10

Use the format! syntax extension.

let x: int = 42;
let y: ~str = format!("{:t}", x);   // binary
let y: ~str = format!("{:o}", x);   // octal
let y: ~str = format!("{:x}", x);   // lowercase hexadecimal
let y: ~str = format!("{:X}", x);   // uppercase hexidecimal

String to int, in non-base-10

Use FromStrRadix, and its helper function, from_str_radix.

use std::num;

let x: Option<i64> = num::from_str_radix("deadbeef", 16);
let y: i64 = x.unwrap();

Vector of Bytes to String

To return a Borrowed String Slice (&str) use the str helper function from_utf8.

use std::str;

let bytes = ~[104u8,105u8];
let x: Option<&str> = str::from_utf8(bytes);
let y: &str = x.unwrap();

To return an Owned String (~str) use the str helper function from_utf8_owned.

use std::str;

let x: Option<~str> = str::from_utf8_owned(~[104u8,105u8]);
let y: ~str = x.unwrap();

To return a MaybeOwned use the str helper function from_utf8_lossy. This function also replaces non-valid utf-8 sequences with U+FFFD replacement character.

use std::str;

let x = bytes!(72u8,"ello ",0xF0,0x90,0x80,"World!");
let y = str::from_utf8_lossy(x);

2 File operations

Use File::open to create a File struct, which implements the Reader trait.

use std::path::Path;
use std::io::fs::File;

let path : Path   = Path::new("Doc-FAQ-Cheatsheet.md");
let on_error      = || fail!("open of {:?} failed", path);
let reader : File = File::open(&path).unwrap_or_else(on_error);

Use the lines method on a BufferedReader.

use std::io::BufferedReader;


let mut reader = BufferedReader::new(reader);
for line in reader.lines() {
    print!("line: {}", line);
}

3 String operations

Use the find_str method.

let str = "Hello, this is some random string";
let index: Option<uint> = str.find_str("rand");

4 Containers

The Container trait provides the len method.

let u: ~[u32] = ~[0, 1, 2];
let v: &[u32] = &[0, 1, 2, 3];
let w: [u32, .. 5] = [0, 1, 2, 3, 4];

println!("u: {}, v: {}, w: {}", u.len(), v.len(), w.len()); // 3, 4, 5

Use the iter method.

let values: ~[int] = ~[1, 2, 3, 4, 5];
for value in values.iter() {  // value: &int
    println!("{}", *value);
}

(See also mut_iter which yields &mut int and move_iter which yields int while consuming the values vector.)

5 Type system

struct Foo {
    myfunc: fn(int, uint) -> i32
}

struct FooClosure<'a> {
    myfunc: 'a |int, uint| -> i32
}

fn a(a: int, b: uint) -> i32 {
    (a as uint + b) as i32
}

fn main() {
    let f = Foo { myfunc: a };
    let g = FooClosure { myfunc: |a, b|  { (a - b as int) as i32 } };
    println!("{}", (f.myfunc)(1, 2));
    println!("{}", (g.myfunc)(3, 4));
}

Note that the parenthesis surrounding f.myfunc are necessary: they are how Rust disambiguates field lookup and method call. The 'a on FooClosure is the lifetime of the closure's environment pointer.

Phantom types are those that cannot be constructed at compile time. To express these in Rust, zero-variant enums can be used:

enum Open {}
enum Closed {}

Phantom types are useful for enforcing state at compile time. For example:

struct Door<State>(~str);

struct Open;
struct Closed;

fn close(Door(name): Door<Open>) -> Door<Closed> {
    Door::<Closed>(name)
}

fn open(Door(name): Door<Closed>) -> Door<Open> {
    Door::<Open>(name)
}

let _ = close(Door::<Open>(~"front"));

Attempting to close a closed door is prevented statically:

let _ = close(Door::<Closed>(~"front")); // error: mismatched types: expected `main::Door<main::Open>` but found `main::Door<main::Closed>`

6 FFI (Foreign Function Interface)

Description C signature Equivalent Rust signature

no parameters void foo(void); fn foo(); return value int foo(void); fn foo() -> c_int; function parameters void foo(int x, int y); fn foo(x: c_int, y: c_int); in-out pointers void foo(const int* in_ptr, int* out_ptr); fn foo(in_ptr: *c_int, out_ptr: *mut c_int);

Note: The Rust signatures should be wrapped in an extern "ABI" { ... } block.

You might see things like this in C APIs:

typedef struct Window Window;
Window* createWindow(int width, int height);

You can use a zero-element enum (phantom type) to represent the opaque object handle. The FFI would look like this:

enum Window {}
extern "C" {
    fn createWindow(width: c_int, height: c_int) -> *Window;
}

Using a phantom type ensures that the handles cannot be (safely) constructed in client code.

7 Contributing to this page

For small examples, have full type annotations, as much as is reasonable, to keep it clear what, exactly, everything is doing. Try to link to the API docs, as well.

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