The Rust Programming Language

Control Flow

if Expressions

if is an expression in Rust, not just a statement:

fn main() {
    let number = 3;

    if number < 5 {
        println!("condition was true");
    } else {
        println!("condition was false");
    }
}

Conditions must be bool - no automatic type conversion:

fn main() {
    let number = 3;

    if number {
        println!("number was three");
    }
}

Error:

$ cargo run
   Compiling branches v0.1.0 (file:///projects/branches)
error[E0308]: mismatched types
 --> src/main.rs:4:8
  |
4 |     if number {
  |        ^^^^^^ expected `bool`, found integer

For more information about this error, try `rustc --explain E0308`.
error: could not compile `branches` (bin "branches") due to 1 previous error

Explicit comparison required:

fn main() {
    let number = 3;

    if number != 0 {
        println!("number was something other than zero");
    }
}

Multiple Conditions

fn main() {
    let number = 6;

    if number % 4 == 0 {
        println!("number is divisible by 4");
    } else if number % 3 == 0 {
        println!("number is divisible by 3");
    } else if number % 2 == 0 {
        println!("number is divisible by 2");
    } else {
        println!("number is not divisible by 4, 3, or 2");
    }
}

if in let Statements

Since if is an expression, it can assign values:

fn main() {
    let condition = true;
    let number = if condition { 5 } else { 6 };

    println!("The value of number is: {number}");
}

All branches must return the same type:

fn main() {
    let condition = true;

    let number = if condition { 5 } else { "six" };

    println!("The value of number is: {number}");
}

Error:

$ cargo run
   Compiling branches v0.1.0 (file:///projects/branches)
error[E0308]: `if` and `else` have incompatible types
 --> src/main.rs:4:44
  |
4 |     let number = if condition { 5 } else { "six" };
  |                                 -          ^^^^^ expected integer, found `&str`
  |                                 |
  |                                 expected because of this

For more information about this error, try `rustc --explain E0308`.
error: could not compile `branches` (bin "branches") due to 1 previous error

Loops

loop

Infinite loop until explicit break:

fn main() {
    loop {
        println!("again!");
    }
}

Return values from loops:

fn main() {
    let mut counter = 0;

    let result = loop {
        counter += 1;

        if counter == 10 {
            break counter * 2;
        }
    };

    println!("The result is {result}");
}

Loop Labels

Label loops for nested control:

fn main() {
    let mut count = 0;
    'counting_up: loop {
        println!("count = {count}");
        let mut remaining = 10;

        loop {
            println!("remaining = {remaining}");
            if remaining == 9 {
                break;
            }
            if count == 2 {
                break 'counting_up;
            }
            remaining -= 1;
        }

        count += 1;
    }
    println!("End count = {count}");
}

Output:

$ cargo run
   Compiling loops v0.1.0 (file:///projects/loops)
    Finished `dev` profile [unoptimized + debuginfo] target(s) in 0.58s
     Running `target/debug/loops`
count = 0
remaining = 10
remaining = 9
count = 1
remaining = 10
remaining = 9
count = 2
remaining = 10
End count = 2

while

Conditional loops:

fn main() {
    let mut number = 3;

    while number != 0 {
        println!("{number}!");

        number -= 1;
    }

    println!("LIFTOFF!!!");
}

for

Preferred for collection iteration. Compare while approach:

fn main() {
    let a = [10, 20, 30, 40, 50];
    let mut index = 0;

    while index < 5 {
        println!("the value is: {}", a[index]);

        index += 1;
    }
}

With safer for loop:

fn main() {
    let a = [10, 20, 30, 40, 50];

    for element in a {
        println!("the value is: {element}");
    }
}

Using ranges:

fn main() {
    for number in (1..4).rev() {
        println!("{number}!");
    }
    println!("LIFTOFF!!!");
}

for loops are preferred in Rust for safety and performance - no bounds checking overhead and elimination of index errors.