Rust in Action: Systems programming concepts and techniques

456 Pages·2021·18.28 MB·english

by  Timothy Samuel McNamara

Systems programming concepts
and techniques
Timothy Samuel McNamara
M A N N I N G
Raw Pointer Box<T> Rc<T> Arc<T>
The cousins*mutTand Store anything in a box.Accepts The reference counted pointer, Rc<T> Arc<T> is Rust’s ambassador.
*constTare the free radicals almost any type for long-term is Rust's competent, yet miserly It can share values across threads,
of the pointer world. Lightning storage.The workhorse of a bookkeeper. It knows who has guaranteeing that these will
fast, but wildly unsafe. new, safe programming era. borrowed what and when. not interfere with each other.
Powers Weaknesses Powers Weaknesses Powers Weaknesses Powers Weaknesses
(cid:129)Speed (cid:129)Unsafe (cid:129)Store a value in (cid:129)Size increase (cid:129)Shared access (cid:129)Size increase (cid:129)Shared access (cid:129)Size increase
(cid:129)Can interact with central storage to values (cid:129)Runtime cost to values (cid:129)Runtime cost
the outside world icna alle ldoc“athtieo nheap” (cid:129)Not threadsafe (cid:129)Threadsafe
Cell<T> RefCell<T> Cow<T> String
An expert in metamorphosis, Performs mutation on immutable Why write something down when Acting as a guide on how to
Cell<T> confers the ability to references with RefCel<T>. you only need to read it? Perhaps deal with the uncertainties of
mutate immutable values. Its mind-bending powers you only want to make modifications. user input, String shows us how
come with some costs. This is the role of Cow (copy on write). to build safe abstractions.
Powers Weaknesses Powers Weaknesses Powers Weaknesses Powers Weaknesses
(cid:129)Interior mutability (cid:129)Size increase (cid:129)Interior mutability (cid:129)Size increase (cid:129)Avoids writes (cid:129)Possible size (cid:129)Grows dynamically (cid:129)Can over
(cid:129)Performance (cid:129)Can be nested (cid:129)Runtime cost when only read increase as required allocate size
within Rc andArc, (cid:129)Lack of compile- access is used (cid:129)Guarantees correct
which only accept time guarantees encoding at runtime
immutable refs
Arc<T> RawVec<T> Unique<T> Shared<T>
Your program’s main storage system. The bedrock of Vec<T> and Sole owner of a value, Sharing ownership is hard.
Vec<T> keeps your data orderly other dynamically sized types. a unique pointer is guaranteed Shared<T> makes life
as values are created and destroyed. Understands how to provide a to possess full control. a little bit easier.
home for your data as needed.
Powers Weaknesses Powers Weaknesses Powers Weaknesses Powers Weaknesses
(cid:129)Grows dynamically (cid:129)Can over (cid:129)Grows dynamically (cid:129)Not directly (cid:129)Base for types (cid:129)Not appropriate (cid:129)Shared ownership (cid:129)Not appropriate
as required allocate size as required applicable from such as Strings, for application (cid:129)Can align memory for application
(cid:129)Works with the your code requiring exclusive code directly toT’s width, even code directly
memory allocator possession of values. when empty
tofind space
Rust in Action

Rust in Action
SYSTEMS PROGRAMMING
CONCEPTS AND TECHNIQUES
TIM MCNAMARA
MANNING
SHELTER ISLAND
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Printed in the United States of America
To everyone aspiring to write safer software.

contents
preface xv
acknowledgments xvii
about this book xix
about the author xxii
about the cover illustration xxiii
1 Introducing Rust 1
1.1 Where is Rust used? 2
1.2 Advocating for Rust at work 3
1.3 A taste of the language 4
Cheating your way to “Hello, world!” 5 ■ Your first Rust
program 7
1.4 Downloading the book’s source code 8
1.5 What does Rust look and feel like? 8
1.6 What is Rust? 11
Goal of Rust: Safety 12 ■ Goal of Rust: Productivity 16
Goal of Rust: Control 18
1.7 Rust’s big features 19
Performance 19 ■ Concurrency 20 ■ Memory efficiency 20
vii
viii CONTENTS
1.8 Downsides of Rust 20
Cyclic data structures 20 ■ Compile times 20 ■ Strictness 21
Size of the language 21 ■ Hype 21
1.9 TLS security case studies 21
Heartbleed 21 ■ Goto fail; 22
1.10 Where does Rust fit best? 23
Command-line utilities 23 ■ Data processing 24 ■ Extending
applications 24 ■ Resource-constrained environments 24
Server-side applications 25 ■ Desktop applications 25
Desktop 25 ■ Mobile 25 ■ Web 26 ■ Systems
programming 26
1.11 Rust’s hidden feature: Its community 26
1.12 Rust phrase book 26
PART 1 RUST LANGUAGE DISTINCTIVES..........................29
2 Language foundations 31
2.1 Creating a running program 33
Compiling single files with rustc 33 ■ Compiling Rust projects
with cargo 33
2.2 A glance at Rust’s syntax 34
Defining variables and calling functions 35
2.3 Numbers 36
Integers and decimal (floating-point) numbers 36 ■ Integers
with base 2, base 8, and base 16 notation 37 ■ Comparing
numbers 38 ■ Rational, complex numbers, and other numeric
types 43
2.4 Flow control 45
For: The central pillar of iteration 45 ■ Continue: Skipping the rest
of the current iteration 47 ■ While: Looping until a condition
changes its state 47 ■ Loop: The basis for Rust’s looping
constructs 48 ■ Break: Aborting a loop 48 ■ If, if else, and
else: Conditional branching 49 ■ Match: Type-aware pattern
matching 51
2.5 Defining functions 52
2.6 Using references 53
2.7 Project: Rendering the Mandelbrot set 54