The match Control Flow Operator
Rust has an extremely powerful control flow operator called match that allows
you to compare a value against a series of patterns and then execute code based
on which pattern matches. Patterns can be made up of literal values, variable
names, wildcards, and many other things; Chapter 18 covers all the different
kinds of patterns and what they do. The power of match comes from the
expressiveness of the patterns and the fact that the compiler confirms that all
possible cases are handled.
Think of a match expression as being like a coin-sorting machine: coins slide
down a track with variously sized holes along it, and each coin falls through
the first hole it encounters that it fits into. In the same way, values go
through each pattern in a match, and at the first pattern the value “fits,”
the value falls into the associated code block to be used during execution.
Because we just mentioned coins, let’s use them as an example using match! We
can write a function that can take an unknown United States coin and, in a
similar way as the counting machine, determine which coin it is and return its
value in cents, as shown here in Listing 6-3.
#![allow(unused_variables)] fn main() { enum Coin { Penny, Nickel, Dime, Quarter, } fn value_in_cents(coin: Coin) -> u8 { match coin { Coin::Penny => 1, Coin::Nickel => 5, Coin::Dime => 10, Coin::Quarter => 25, } } }
Listing 6-3: An enum and a match expression that has
the variants of the enum as its patterns
Let’s break down the match in the value_in_cents function. First, we list
the match keyword followed by an expression, which in this case is the value
coin. This seems very similar to an expression used with if, but there’s a
big difference: with if, the expression needs to return a Boolean value, but
here, it can be any type. The type of coin in this example is the Coin enum
that we defined on line 1.
Next are the match arms. An arm has two parts: a pattern and some code. The
first arm here has a pattern that is the value Coin::Penny and then the =>
operator that separates the pattern and the code to run. The code in this case
is just the value 1. Each arm is separated from the next with a comma.
When the match expression executes, it compares the resulting value against
the pattern of each arm, in order. If a pattern matches the value, the code
associated with that pattern is executed. If that pattern doesn’t match the
value, execution continues to the next arm, much as in a coin-sorting machine.
We can have as many arms as we need: in Listing 6-3, our match has four arms.
The code associated with each arm is an expression, and the resulting value of
the expression in the matching arm is the value that gets returned for the
entire match expression.
Curly brackets typically aren’t used if the match arm code is short, as it is
in Listing 6-3 where each arm just returns a value. If you want to run multiple
lines of code in a match arm, you can use curly brackets. For example, the
following code would print “Lucky penny!” every time the method was called with
a Coin::Penny but would still return the last value of the block, 1:
#![allow(unused_variables)] fn main() { enum Coin { Penny, Nickel, Dime, Quarter, } fn value_in_cents(coin: Coin) -> u8 { match coin { Coin::Penny => { println!("Lucky penny!"); 1 }, Coin::Nickel => 5, Coin::Dime => 10, Coin::Quarter => 25, } } }
Patterns that Bind to Values
Another useful feature of match arms is that they can bind to the parts of the values that match the pattern. This is how we can extract values out of enum variants.
As an example, let’s change one of our enum variants to hold data inside it.
From 1999 through 2008, the United States minted quarters with different
designs for each of the 50 states on one side. No other coins got state
designs, so only quarters have this extra value. We can add this information to
our enum by changing the Quarter variant to include a UsState value stored
inside it, which we’ve done here in Listing 6-4.
#![allow(unused_variables)] fn main() { #[derive(Debug)] // so we can inspect the state in a minute enum UsState { Alabama, Alaska, // --snip-- } enum Coin { Penny, Nickel, Dime, Quarter(UsState), } }
Listing 6-4: A Coin enum in which the Quarter variant
also holds a UsState value
Let’s imagine that a friend of ours is trying to collect all 50 state quarters. While we sort our loose change by coin type, we’ll also call out the name of the state associated with each quarter so if it’s one our friend doesn’t have, they can add it to their collection.
In the match expression for this code, we add a variable called state to the
pattern that matches values of the variant Coin::Quarter. When a
Coin::Quarter matches, the state variable will bind to the value of that
quarter’s state. Then we can use state in the code for that arm, like so:
#![allow(unused_variables)] fn main() { #[derive(Debug)] enum UsState { Alabama, Alaska, } enum Coin { Penny, Nickel, Dime, Quarter(UsState), } fn value_in_cents(coin: Coin) -> u8 { match coin { Coin::Penny => 1, Coin::Nickel => 5, Coin::Dime => 10, Coin::Quarter(state) => { println!("State quarter from {:?}!", state); 25 }, } } }
If we were to call value_in_cents(Coin::Quarter(UsState::Alaska)), coin
would be Coin::Quarter(UsState::Alaska). When we compare that value with each
of the match arms, none of them match until we reach Coin::Quarter(state). At
that point, the binding for state will be the value UsState::Alaska. We can
then use that binding in the println! expression, thus getting the inner
state value out of the Coin enum variant for Quarter.
Matching with Option<T>
In the previous section, we wanted to get the inner T value out of the Some
case when using Option<T>; we can also handle Option<T> using match as we
did with the Coin enum! Instead of comparing coins, we’ll compare the
variants of Option<T>, but the way that the match expression works remains
the same.
Let’s say we want to write a function that takes an Option<i32> and, if
there’s a value inside, adds 1 to that value. If there isn’t a value inside,
the function should return the None value and not attempt to perform any
operations.
This function is very easy to write, thanks to match, and will look like
Listing 6-5.
#![allow(unused_variables)] fn main() { fn plus_one(x: Option<i32>) -> Option<i32> { match x { None => None, Some(i) => Some(i + 1), } } let five = Some(5); let six = plus_one(five); let none = plus_one(None); }
Listing 6-5: A function that uses a match expression on
an Option<i32>
Let’s examine the first execution of plus_one in more detail. When we call
plus_one(five), the variable x in the body of plus_one will have the
value Some(5). We then compare that against each match arm.
None => None,
The Some(5) value doesn’t match the pattern None, so we continue to the
next arm.
Some(i) => Some(i + 1),
Does Some(5) match Some(i)? Why yes it does! We have the same variant. The
i binds to the value contained in Some, so i takes the value 5. The
code in the match arm is then executed, so we add 1 to the value of i and
create a new Some value with our total 6 inside.
Now let’s consider the second call of plus_one in Listing 6-5, where x is
None. We enter the match and compare to the first arm.
None => None,
It matches! There’s no value to add to, so the program stops and returns the
None value on the right side of =>. Because the first arm matched, no other
arms are compared.
Combining match and enums is useful in many situations. You’ll see this
pattern a lot in Rust code: match against an enum, bind a variable to the
data inside, and then execute code based on it. It’s a bit tricky at first, but
once you get used to it, you’ll wish you had it in all languages. It’s
consistently a user favorite.
Matches Are Exhaustive
There’s one other aspect of match we need to discuss. Consider this version
of our plus_one function that has a bug and won’t compile:
fn plus_one(x: Option<i32>) -> Option<i32> {
match x {
Some(i) => Some(i + 1),
}
}
We didn’t handle the None case, so this code will cause a bug. Luckily, it’s
a bug Rust knows how to catch. If we try to compile this code, we’ll get this
error:
error[E0004]: non-exhaustive patterns: `None` not covered
-->
|
6 | match x {
| ^ pattern `None` not covered
Rust knows that we didn’t cover every possible case and even knows which
pattern we forgot! Matches in Rust are exhaustive: we must exhaust every last
possibility in order for the code to be valid. Especially in the case of
Option<T>, when Rust prevents us from forgetting to explicitly handle the
None case, it protects us from assuming that we have a value when we might
have null, thus making the billion-dollar mistake discussed earlier.
The _ Placeholder
Rust also has a pattern we can use when we don’t want to list all possible
values. For example, a u8 can have valid values of 0 through 255. If we only
care about the values 1, 3, 5, and 7, we don’t want to have to list out 0, 2,
4, 6, 8, 9 all the way up to 255. Fortunately, we don’t have to: we can use the
special pattern _ instead:
#![allow(unused_variables)] fn main() { let some_u8_value = 0u8; match some_u8_value { 1 => println!("one"), 3 => println!("three"), 5 => println!("five"), 7 => println!("seven"), _ => (), } }
The _ pattern will match any value. By putting it after our other arms, the
_ will match all the possible cases that aren’t specified before it. The ()
is just the unit value, so nothing will happen in the _ case. As a result, we
can say that we want to do nothing for all the possible values that we don’t
list before the _ placeholder.
However, the match expression can be a bit wordy in a situation in which we
care about only one of the cases. For this situation, Rust provides if let.