Rust for C-Programmers

21.21 Summary

Rust’s pattern matching system offers a vast array of capabilities:

• Exhaustive Matching ensures you handle every variant of an enum, preventing runtime surprises.
• Refutable vs. Irrefutable Patterns guide where each kind of pattern can appear.
• Wildcard (_), OR Patterns, and Guards let you handle broad or specific conditions.
• Destructuring of tuples, structs, enums, arrays, and slices gives you fine-grained control without verbose indexing.
• Advanced Constructs like @ bindings, let else, if let chains, and partial moves push pattern matching beyond simple case analysis.
• Extended Use in for loops, function parameters, closures, and more makes destructuring a natural part of everyday Rust.

By embracing Rust’s pattern features, you can write clearer, more maintainable code that remains both expressive and safe—far beyond what a traditional C switch could achieve.