Let Control Flow

Rust has a few control flow constructs which differ from other languages. They are used for pattern matching:

• if let expressions
• while let expressions
• match expressions

if let expressions

The if let expression lets you execute different code depending on whether a value matches a pattern:

fn sleep_for(secs: f32) {
    let dur = if let Ok(dur) = std::time::Duration::try_from_secs_f32(secs) {
        dur
    } else {
        std::time::Duration::from_millis(500)
    };
    std::thread::sleep(dur);
    println!("slept for {:?}", dur);
}

fn main() {
    sleep_for(-10.0);
    sleep_for(0.8);
}

let else expressions

For the common case of matching a pattern and returning from the function, use let else. The “else” case must diverge (return, break, or panic - anything but falling off the end of the block).

fn hex_or_die_trying(maybe_string: Option<String>) -> Result<u32, String> {
    let s = if let Some(s) = maybe_string {
        s
    } else {
        return Err(String::from("got None"));
    };

    let first_byte_char = if let Some(first_byte_char) = s.chars().next() {
        first_byte_char
    } else {
        return Err(String::from("got empty string"));
    };

    if let Some(digit) = first_byte_char.to_digit(16) {
        Ok(digit)
    } else {
        Err(String::from("not a hex digit"))
    }
}

fn main() {
    println!("result: {:?}", hex_or_die_trying(Some(String::from("foo"))));
}

Like with if let, there is a while let variant which repeatedly tests a value against a pattern:

fn main() {
    let mut name = String::from("Comprehensive Rust 🦀");
    while let Some(c) = name.pop() {
        println!("character: {c}");
    }
    // (There are more efficient ways to reverse a string!)
}

Here String::pop returns Some(c) until the string is empty, after which it will return None. The while let lets us keep iterating through all items.

#![allow(unused)]
fn main() {
fn hex_or_die_trying(maybe_string: Option<String>) -> Result<u32, String> {
    let Some(s) = maybe_string else {
        return Err(String::from("got None"));
    };

    let Some(first_byte_char) = s.chars().next() else {
        return Err(String::from("got empty string"));
    };

    let Some(digit) = first_byte_char.to_digit(16) else {
        return Err(String::from("not a hex digit"));
    };

    return Ok(digit);
}
}