Chapter 7: Control Flow in Rust
Control flow is a fundamental aspect of programming—it enables decision-making, conditional execution, and repeating actions. For C programmers transitioning to Rust, understanding Rust's control flow mechanisms, and how they differ from C's, is essential.
In this chapter, we'll examine Rust's control flow constructs and compare them to their counterparts in C, helping you build on your existing knowledge. We'll cover:
- Conditional statements (
if,else if,else) - Looping constructs (
loop,while,for) - The
matchstatement for pattern matching - Variable scope and shadowing
We will delve into Rust's more advanced control flow features, which have no direct equivalent in older languages like C, in later chapters. These include:
- Pattern matching with
match - Error handling using
ResultandOption - The use of
if letandwhile letfor more concise control flow
Unlike some languages, Rust avoids hidden control flow paths such as exception handling with try/catch. Instead, Rust uses the Result and Option types to handle errors in a more explicit and transparent way. We'll delve into these advanced control flow features, as well as if let and while let, in later chapters.