Hands-On Systems Programming with Rust: A Project-Based Approach

Preface....5

What Is Rust?....5

Who Should Read This Book....8

Why You Should Learn Rust....9

The Coding Challenges....10

Getting Rust and the Code....11

Conventions Used in This Book....14

Using Code Examples....15

O’Reilly Online Learning....16

How to Contact Us....16

Acknowledgments....17

1. Echo Canyon....18

Starting a New Binary Program with Cargo....19

How echo Works....22

Getting Command-Line Arguments....25

Adding a Project Dependency....29

Parsing Command-Line Arguments Using clap....31

Creating the Program Output....36

Writing and Running Integration Tests....40

Creating the Test Output Files....44

Comparing Program Output....45

Using the Result Type....47

Summary....50

2. On The Catwalk....53

How cat Works....54

Getting Started with Test-Driven Development....58

Code Organization....60

Defining the Parameters....61

Processing the Files....70

Solution....73

Reading the Lines in a File....73

Printing Line Numbers....75

Reading Standard In....78

Going Further....80

Summary....80

3. Head Aches....82

How head Works....83

Getting Started....86

Defining and Validating the Arguments....91

Parsing Strings into Numbers....92

Converting Strings into Errors....98

Writing the run() Function....102

Solution....105

Reading a File Line-by-line....105

Preserving Line Endings While Reading a File....106

Reading Bytes and Characters....109

Printing the File Separators....112

Going Further....114

Summary....114

4. The Tailor....116

How tail Works....117

Getting Started....122

Defining the Arguments....122

Reading the End of a File....129

Solution....130

Going Further....139

Summary....139

5. Elless Island....141

How ls Works....142

Getting Started....145

Defining the Arguments....146

Writing the Program....148

Displaying Octal Permissions....154

Solution....160

Testing....168

Going Further....173

Summary....174

6. Word To Your Mother....175

How wc Works....176

Getting Started....181

Iterating the Files....189

Solution....190

Counting the Elements of a File or STDIN....190

Formatting the Output....197

Going Further....203

Summary....204

For several consecutive years, Rust has been voted "most loved programming language" in Stack Overflow's annual developer survey. This open source systems programming language is now used for everything from game engines and operating systems to browser components and virtual reality simulation engines. But Rust is also an incredibly complex language with a notoriously difficult learning curve.

Rather than focus on the language as a whole, this guide teaches Rust using a single small, complete, focused program in each chapter. Author Ken Youens-Clark shows you how to start, write, and test each of these programs to create a finished product. You'll learn how to handle errors in Rust, read and write files, and use regular expressions, Rust types, structs, and more.

Discover how to:

• Use Rust's standard libraries and data types such as strings, vectors, dictionaries, and sets to create systems programs
• Write and test Rust programs and functions
• Read and write files, including stdin, stdout, and stderr
• Document and validate command-line arguments
• Write programs that fail gracefully
• Parse raw and delimited text as well as Excel data
• Use and control randomness