Rule of Three - Parameters, Iterators, and Closures - Rust Crash Course lesson 5 - exercise solutions

New: The "Begin Rust" book

See a typo? Have a suggestion? Edit this page on Github

Heads up This blog post series has been updated and published as an eBook by FP Complete. I'd recommend reading that version instead of these posts. If you're interested, please check out the Rust Crash Course eBook.

Below are the solutions to the exercises from the last Rust Crash Course lesson, "Rule of Three - Parameters, Iterators, and Closures."

This post is part of a series based on teaching Rust at FP Complete. If you're reading this post outside of the blog, you can find links to all posts in the series at the top of the introduction post. You can also subscribe to the RSS feed.

Exercise 1

fn double(x: &mut u32) {
    *x *= 2;
}

fn main() {
    let mut x = 5;
    double(&mut x);
    println!("{}", x);
}

Notice that the variable x does not need to be mutable, since we're only modifying the value it references.

Exercise 2

The (IMO) straightforward solution is:

struct InfiniteUnit;

impl IntoIterator for InfiniteUnit {
    type Item = ();
    type IntoIter = InfiniteUnitIter;

    fn into_iter(self) -> Self::IntoIter {
        InfiniteUnitIter
    }
}

struct InfiniteUnitIter;

impl Iterator for InfiniteUnitIter {
    type Item = ();
    fn next(&mut self) -> Option<()> {
        Some(())
    }
}

fn main() {
    let mut count = 0;
    for _ in InfiniteUnit {
        count += 1;
        println!("count == {}", count);
        if count >= 5 {
            break;
        }
    }
}

However, if you want to be a bit more clever, there's already a function in the standard library that creates an infinite iterator, called repeat. Using that, you can bypass the extra struct here:

struct InfiniteUnit;

impl IntoIterator for InfiniteUnit {
    type Item = ();
    type IntoIter = std::iter::Repeat<()>;

    fn into_iter(self) -> Self::IntoIter {
        std::iter::repeat(())
    }
}

fn main() {
    let mut count = 0;
    for _ in InfiniteUnit {
        count += 1;
        println!("count == {}", count);
        if count >= 5 {
            break;
        }
    }
}

Exercise 3

The closure version:

fn main() {
    let msg: &str = "Hi!";
    let say_hi = |msg| println!("{}", msg);
    say_hi(msg);
    say_hi(msg);
}

And the function version:

fn main() {
    let msg: &str = "Hi!";
    fn say_hi(msg: &str) {
        println!("{}", msg);
    }
    say_hi(msg);
    say_hi(msg);
}

Since say_hi is no longer referring to any variables in the local scope, it doesn't need to be a closure.

Exercise 4

fn main() {
    call_with_hi(say_message);
    call_with_hi(say_message);
}

fn say_message(msg: &str) {
    println!("{}", msg);
}

fn call_with_hi<F>(f: F)
    where F: Fn(&str)
{
    f("Hi!");
}

Exercise 5

The first error message we get is:

error[E0599]: no method named `map` found for type `std::vec::Vec<u32>` in the current scope
 --> main.rs:5:23
  |
5 |         for i in nums.map(unimplemented!()) {
  |                       ^^^
  |
  = note: the method `map` exists but the following trait bounds were not satisfied:
          `&mut std::vec::Vec<u32> : std::iter::Iterator`
          `&mut [u32] : std::iter::Iterator`

Looks like we need to get an Iterator out of our nums. We have three different choices: into_iter(), iter(), and iter_mut(). Since we need to use the result multiple times, and don't need any mutation, iter() seems like the right call. Once we replace nums.map with nums.iter().map, we can move on to the unimplemented!() bit.

We need a closure that will double a number. That's pretty easy: |x| x * 2. Plugging that in works! Extra challenge: is that closure a FnOnce, FnMut, or Fn?

Exercise 6

You need to add a .unwrap() call on the create call:

use std::io::Write;
let mut file = std::fs::File::create("mylog.txt").unwrap();
file.write_all(b"I was clicked.\n");

Like this, you'll get a warning from the compiler that you've ignored the Result coming from write_all. That's bad practice, and the compiler is rightfully yelling at you. You can fix that with unwrap(). However, that's also bad practice :).

Exercise 7

extern crate gtk;

use gtk::prelude::*;

use gtk::{Button, Window, WindowType};

use std::cell::RefCell;
use std::io::Write;

fn main() -> Result<(), Box<std::error::Error>> {
    gtk::init()?;

    let window = Window::new(WindowType::Toplevel);
    window.set_title("First GTK+ Program");
    window.set_default_size(350, 70);
    let button = Button::new_with_label("Click me!");
    window.add(&button);
    window.show_all();

    window.connect_delete_event(|_, _| {
        gtk::main_quit();
        Inhibit(false)
    });

    let file = std::fs::File::create("mylog.txt")?;
    let file = RefCell::new(file);
    button.connect_clicked(move |_| {
        match file.borrow_mut().write_all(b"I was clicked.\n") {
            Ok(()) => (),
            Err(e) => eprintln!("Error writing to file: {}", e),
        }
    });

    gtk::main();

    Ok(())
}

Rust at FP Complete | Introduction