<!DOCTYPE HTML> <html lang="en" class="sidebar-visible no-js light"> <head> <!-- Book generated using mdBook --> <meta charset="UTF-8"> <title>Unrecoverable Errors with panic! - The Rust Programming Language</title> <meta content="text/html; charset=utf-8" http-equiv="Content-Type"> <meta name="description" content=""> <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1"> <meta name="theme-color" content="#ffffff" /> <link rel="shortcut icon" href="favicon.png"> <link rel="stylesheet" href="css/variables.css"> <link rel="stylesheet" href="css/general.css"> <link rel="stylesheet" href="css/chrome.css"> <link rel="stylesheet" href="css/print.css" media="print"> <!-- Fonts --> <link rel="stylesheet" href="FontAwesome/css/font-awesome.css"> <link href="googleFonts/css.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"> <!-- Highlight.js Stylesheets --> <link rel="stylesheet" href="highlight.css"> <link rel="stylesheet" href="tomorrow-night.css"> <link rel="stylesheet" href="ayu-highlight.css"> <!-- Custom theme stylesheets --> <link rel="stylesheet" href="ferris.css"> <link rel="stylesheet" href="theme/2018-edition.css"> </head> <body> <!-- Provide site root to javascript --> <script type="text/javascript"> var path_to_root = ""; var default_theme = window.matchMedia("(prefers-color-scheme: dark)").matches ? 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displayed --> <script type="text/javascript"> var html = document.querySelector('html'); var sidebar = 'hidden'; if (document.body.clientWidth >= 1080) { try { sidebar = localStorage.getItem('mdbook-sidebar'); } catch(e) { } sidebar = sidebar || 'visible'; } html.classList.remove('sidebar-visible'); html.classList.add("sidebar-" + sidebar); </script> <nav id="sidebar" class="sidebar" aria-label="Table of contents"> <div id="sidebar-scrollbox" class="sidebar-scrollbox"> <ol class="chapter"><li class="expanded affix "><a href="title-page.html">The Rust Programming Language</a></li><li class="expanded affix "><a href="foreword.html">Foreword</a></li><li class="expanded affix "><a href="ch00-00-introduction.html">Introduction</a></li><li class="expanded "><a href="ch01-00-getting-started.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">1.</strong> Getting Started</a></li><li><ol class="section"><li class="expanded "><a href="ch01-01-installation.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">1.1.</strong> Installation</a></li><li class="expanded "><a href="ch01-02-hello-world.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">1.2.</strong> Hello, World!</a></li><li class="expanded "><a href="ch01-03-hello-cargo.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">1.3.</strong> Hello, Cargo!</a></li></ol></li><li class="expanded "><a href="ch02-00-guessing-game-tutorial.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">2.</strong> Programming a Guessing Game</a></li><li class="expanded "><a href="ch03-00-common-programming-concepts.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">3.</strong> Common Programming Concepts</a></li><li><ol class="section"><li class="expanded "><a href="ch03-01-variables-and-mutability.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">3.1.</strong> Variables and Mutability</a></li><li class="expanded "><a href="ch03-02-data-types.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">3.2.</strong> Data Types</a></li><li class="expanded "><a href="ch03-03-how-functions-work.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">3.3.</strong> Functions</a></li><li class="expanded "><a href="ch03-04-comments.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">3.4.</strong> Comments</a></li><li class="expanded "><a href="ch03-05-control-flow.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">3.5.</strong> Control Flow</a></li></ol></li><li class="expanded "><a href="ch04-00-understanding-ownership.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">4.</strong> Understanding Ownership</a></li><li><ol class="section"><li class="expanded "><a href="ch04-01-what-is-ownership.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">4.1.</strong> What is Ownership?</a></li><li class="expanded "><a href="ch04-02-references-and-borrowing.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">4.2.</strong> References and Borrowing</a></li><li class="expanded "><a href="ch04-03-slices.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">4.3.</strong> The Slice Type</a></li></ol></li><li class="expanded "><a href="ch05-00-structs.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">5.</strong> Using Structs to Structure Related Data</a></li><li><ol class="section"><li class="expanded "><a href="ch05-01-defining-structs.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">5.1.</strong> Defining and Instantiating Structs</a></li><li class="expanded "><a href="ch05-02-example-structs.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">5.2.</strong> An Example Program Using Structs</a></li><li class="expanded "><a href="ch05-03-method-syntax.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">5.3.</strong> Method Syntax</a></li></ol></li><li class="expanded "><a href="ch06-00-enums.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">6.</strong> Enums and Pattern Matching</a></li><li><ol class="section"><li class="expanded "><a href="ch06-01-defining-an-enum.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">6.1.</strong> Defining an Enum</a></li><li class="expanded "><a href="ch06-02-match.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">6.2.</strong> The match Control Flow Operator</a></li><li class="expanded "><a href="ch06-03-if-let.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">6.3.</strong> Concise Control Flow with if let</a></li></ol></li><li class="expanded "><a href="ch07-00-managing-growing-projects-with-packages-crates-and-modules.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">7.</strong> Managing Growing Projects with Packages, Crates, and Modules</a></li><li><ol class="section"><li class="expanded "><a href="ch07-01-packages-and-crates.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">7.1.</strong> Packages and Crates</a></li><li class="expanded "><a href="ch07-02-defining-modules-to-control-scope-and-privacy.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">7.2.</strong> Defining Modules to Control Scope and Privacy</a></li><li class="expanded "><a href="ch07-03-paths-for-referring-to-an-item-in-the-module-tree.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">7.3.</strong> Paths for Referring to an Item in the Module Tree</a></li><li class="expanded "><a href="ch07-04-bringing-paths-into-scope-with-the-use-keyword.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">7.4.</strong> Bringing Paths Into Scope with the use Keyword</a></li><li class="expanded "><a href="ch07-05-separating-modules-into-different-files.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">7.5.</strong> Separating Modules into Different Files</a></li></ol></li><li class="expanded "><a href="ch08-00-common-collections.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">8.</strong> Common Collections</a></li><li><ol class="section"><li class="expanded "><a href="ch08-01-vectors.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">8.1.</strong> Storing Lists of Values with Vectors</a></li><li class="expanded "><a href="ch08-02-strings.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">8.2.</strong> Storing UTF-8 Encoded Text with Strings</a></li><li class="expanded "><a href="ch08-03-hash-maps.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">8.3.</strong> Storing Keys with Associated Values in Hash Maps</a></li></ol></li><li class="expanded "><a href="ch09-00-error-handling.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">9.</strong> Error Handling</a></li><li><ol class="section"><li class="expanded "><a href="ch09-01-unrecoverable-errors-with-panic.html" class="active"><strong aria-hidden="true">9.1.</strong> Unrecoverable Errors with panic!</a></li><li class="expanded "><a href="ch09-02-recoverable-errors-with-result.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">9.2.</strong> Recoverable Errors with Result</a></li><li class="expanded "><a href="ch09-03-to-panic-or-not-to-panic.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">9.3.</strong> To panic! or Not To panic!</a></li></ol></li><li class="expanded "><a href="ch10-00-generics.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">10.</strong> Generic Types, Traits, and Lifetimes</a></li><li><ol class="section"><li class="expanded "><a href="ch10-01-syntax.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">10.1.</strong> Generic Data Types</a></li><li class="expanded "><a href="ch10-02-traits.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">10.2.</strong> Traits: Defining Shared Behavior</a></li><li class="expanded "><a href="ch10-03-lifetime-syntax.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">10.3.</strong> Validating References with Lifetimes</a></li></ol></li><li class="expanded "><a href="ch11-00-testing.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">11.</strong> Writing Automated Tests</a></li><li><ol class="section"><li class="expanded "><a href="ch11-01-writing-tests.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">11.1.</strong> How to Write Tests</a></li><li class="expanded "><a href="ch11-02-running-tests.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">11.2.</strong> Controlling How Tests Are Run</a></li><li class="expanded "><a href="ch11-03-test-organization.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">11.3.</strong> Test Organization</a></li></ol></li><li class="expanded "><a href="ch12-00-an-io-project.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">12.</strong> An I/O Project: Building a Command Line Program</a></li><li><ol class="section"><li class="expanded "><a href="ch12-01-accepting-command-line-arguments.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">12.1.</strong> Accepting Command Line Arguments</a></li><li class="expanded "><a href="ch12-02-reading-a-file.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">12.2.</strong> Reading a File</a></li><li class="expanded "><a href="ch12-03-improving-error-handling-and-modularity.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">12.3.</strong> Refactoring to Improve Modularity and Error Handling</a></li><li class="expanded "><a href="ch12-04-testing-the-librarys-functionality.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">12.4.</strong> Developing the Library’s Functionality with Test Driven Development</a></li><li class="expanded "><a href="ch12-05-working-with-environment-variables.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">12.5.</strong> Working with Environment Variables</a></li><li class="expanded "><a href="ch12-06-writing-to-stderr-instead-of-stdout.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">12.6.</strong> Writing Error Messages to Standard Error Instead of Standard Output</a></li></ol></li><li class="expanded "><a href="ch13-00-functional-features.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">13.</strong> Functional Language Features: Iterators and Closures</a></li><li><ol class="section"><li class="expanded "><a href="ch13-01-closures.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">13.1.</strong> Closures: Anonymous Functions that Can Capture Their Environment</a></li><li class="expanded "><a href="ch13-02-iterators.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">13.2.</strong> Processing a Series of Items with Iterators</a></li><li class="expanded "><a href="ch13-03-improving-our-io-project.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">13.3.</strong> Improving Our I/O Project</a></li><li class="expanded "><a href="ch13-04-performance.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">13.4.</strong> Comparing Performance: Loops vs. Iterators</a></li></ol></li><li class="expanded "><a href="ch14-00-more-about-cargo.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">14.</strong> More about Cargo and Crates.io</a></li><li><ol class="section"><li class="expanded "><a href="ch14-01-release-profiles.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">14.1.</strong> Customizing Builds with Release Profiles</a></li><li class="expanded "><a href="ch14-02-publishing-to-crates-io.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">14.2.</strong> Publishing a Crate to Crates.io</a></li><li class="expanded "><a href="ch14-03-cargo-workspaces.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">14.3.</strong> Cargo Workspaces</a></li><li class="expanded "><a href="ch14-04-installing-binaries.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">14.4.</strong> Installing Binaries from Crates.io with cargo install</a></li><li class="expanded "><a href="ch14-05-extending-cargo.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">14.5.</strong> Extending Cargo with Custom Commands</a></li></ol></li><li class="expanded "><a href="ch15-00-smart-pointers.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">15.</strong> Smart Pointers</a></li><li><ol class="section"><li class="expanded "><a href="ch15-01-box.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">15.1.</strong> Using Box<T> to Point to Data on the Heap</a></li><li class="expanded "><a href="ch15-02-deref.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">15.2.</strong> Treating Smart Pointers Like Regular References with the Deref Trait</a></li><li class="expanded "><a href="ch15-03-drop.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">15.3.</strong> Running Code on Cleanup with the Drop Trait</a></li><li class="expanded "><a href="ch15-04-rc.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">15.4.</strong> Rc<T>, the Reference Counted Smart Pointer</a></li><li class="expanded "><a href="ch15-05-interior-mutability.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">15.5.</strong> RefCell<T> and the Interior Mutability Pattern</a></li><li class="expanded "><a href="ch15-06-reference-cycles.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">15.6.</strong> Reference Cycles Can Leak Memory</a></li></ol></li><li class="expanded "><a href="ch16-00-concurrency.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">16.</strong> Fearless Concurrency</a></li><li><ol class="section"><li class="expanded "><a href="ch16-01-threads.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">16.1.</strong> Using Threads to Run Code Simultaneously</a></li><li class="expanded "><a href="ch16-02-message-passing.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">16.2.</strong> Using Message Passing to Transfer Data Between Threads</a></li><li class="expanded "><a href="ch16-03-shared-state.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">16.3.</strong> Shared-State Concurrency</a></li><li class="expanded "><a href="ch16-04-extensible-concurrency-sync-and-send.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">16.4.</strong> Extensible Concurrency with the Sync and Send Traits</a></li></ol></li><li class="expanded "><a href="ch17-00-oop.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">17.</strong> Object Oriented Programming Features of Rust</a></li><li><ol class="section"><li class="expanded "><a href="ch17-01-what-is-oo.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">17.1.</strong> Characteristics of Object-Oriented Languages</a></li><li class="expanded "><a href="ch17-02-trait-objects.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">17.2.</strong> Using Trait Objects That Allow for Values of Different Types</a></li><li class="expanded "><a href="ch17-03-oo-design-patterns.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">17.3.</strong> Implementing an Object-Oriented Design Pattern</a></li></ol></li><li class="expanded "><a href="ch18-00-patterns.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">18.</strong> Patterns and Matching</a></li><li><ol class="section"><li class="expanded "><a href="ch18-01-all-the-places-for-patterns.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">18.1.</strong> All the Places Patterns Can Be Used</a></li><li class="expanded "><a href="ch18-02-refutability.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">18.2.</strong> Refutability: Whether a Pattern Might Fail to Match</a></li><li class="expanded "><a href="ch18-03-pattern-syntax.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">18.3.</strong> Pattern Syntax</a></li></ol></li><li class="expanded "><a href="ch19-00-advanced-features.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">19.</strong> Advanced Features</a></li><li><ol class="section"><li class="expanded "><a href="ch19-01-unsafe-rust.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">19.1.</strong> Unsafe Rust</a></li><li class="expanded "><a href="ch19-03-advanced-traits.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">19.2.</strong> Advanced Traits</a></li><li class="expanded "><a href="ch19-04-advanced-types.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">19.3.</strong> Advanced Types</a></li><li class="expanded "><a href="ch19-05-advanced-functions-and-closures.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">19.4.</strong> Advanced Functions and Closures</a></li><li class="expanded "><a href="ch19-06-macros.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">19.5.</strong> Macros</a></li></ol></li><li class="expanded "><a href="ch20-00-final-project-a-web-server.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">20.</strong> Final Project: Building a Multithreaded Web Server</a></li><li><ol class="section"><li class="expanded "><a href="ch20-01-single-threaded.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">20.1.</strong> Building a Single-Threaded Web Server</a></li><li class="expanded "><a href="ch20-02-multithreaded.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">20.2.</strong> Turning Our Single-Threaded Server into a Multithreaded Server</a></li><li class="expanded "><a href="ch20-03-graceful-shutdown-and-cleanup.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">20.3.</strong> Graceful Shutdown and Cleanup</a></li></ol></li><li class="expanded "><a href="appendix-00.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">21.</strong> Appendix</a></li><li><ol class="section"><li class="expanded "><a href="appendix-01-keywords.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">21.1.</strong> A - Keywords</a></li><li class="expanded "><a href="appendix-02-operators.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">21.2.</strong> B - Operators and Symbols</a></li><li class="expanded "><a href="appendix-03-derivable-traits.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">21.3.</strong> C - Derivable Traits</a></li><li class="expanded "><a href="appendix-04-useful-development-tools.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">21.4.</strong> D - Useful Development Tools</a></li><li class="expanded "><a href="appendix-05-editions.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">21.5.</strong> E - Editions</a></li><li class="expanded "><a href="appendix-06-translation.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">21.6.</strong> F - Translations of the Book</a></li><li class="expanded "><a href="appendix-07-nightly-rust.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">21.7.</strong> G - How Rust is Made and “Nightly Rust”</a></li></ol></li></ol> </div> <div id="sidebar-resize-handle" class="sidebar-resize-handle"></div> </nav> <div id="page-wrapper" class="page-wrapper"> <div class="page"> <div id="menu-bar" class="menu-bar"> <div id="menu-bar-sticky-container"> <div class="left-buttons"> <button id="sidebar-toggle" class="icon-button" type="button" title="Toggle Table of Contents" aria-label="Toggle Table of Contents" aria-controls="sidebar"> <i class="fa fa-bars"></i> </button> <button id="theme-toggle" class="icon-button" type="button" title="Change theme" aria-label="Change theme" aria-haspopup="true" aria-expanded="false" aria-controls="theme-list"> <i class="fa fa-paint-brush"></i> </button> <ul id="theme-list" class="theme-popup" 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(Shortkey: s)" aria-label="Toggle Searchbar" aria-expanded="false" aria-keyshortcuts="S" aria-controls="searchbar"> <i class="fa fa-search"></i> </button> </div> <h1 class="menu-title">The Rust Programming Language</h1> <div class="right-buttons"> <a href="print.html" title="Print this book" aria-label="Print this book"> <i id="print-button" class="fa fa-print"></i> </a> </div> </div> </div> <div id="search-wrapper" class="hidden"> <form id="searchbar-outer" class="searchbar-outer"> <input type="search" name="search" id="searchbar" name="searchbar" placeholder="Search this book ..." aria-controls="searchresults-outer" aria-describedby="searchresults-header"> </form> <div id="searchresults-outer" class="searchresults-outer hidden"> <div id="searchresults-header" class="searchresults-header"></div> <ul id="searchresults"> </ul> </div> </div> <!-- Apply ARIA attributes after the sidebar and the sidebar toggle button are added to the DOM --> <script type="text/javascript"> document.getElementById('sidebar-toggle').setAttribute('aria-expanded', sidebar === 'visible'); document.getElementById('sidebar').setAttribute('aria-hidden', sidebar !== 'visible'); Array.from(document.querySelectorAll('#sidebar a')).forEach(function(link) { link.setAttribute('tabIndex', sidebar === 'visible' ? 0 : -1); }); </script> <div id="content" class="content"> <main> <h2><a class="header" href="#unrecoverable-errors-with-panic" id="unrecoverable-errors-with-panic">Unrecoverable Errors with <code>panic!</code></a></h2> <p>Sometimes, bad things happen in your code, and there’s nothing you can do about it. In these cases, Rust has the <code>panic!</code> macro. When the <code>panic!</code> macro executes, your program will print a failure message, unwind and clean up the stack, and then quit. This most commonly occurs when a bug of some kind has been detected and it’s not clear to the programmer how to handle the error.</p> <blockquote> <h3><a class="header" href="#unwinding-the-stack-or-aborting-in-response-to-a-panic" id="unwinding-the-stack-or-aborting-in-response-to-a-panic">Unwinding the Stack or Aborting in Response to a Panic</a></h3> <p>By default, when a panic occurs, the program starts <em>unwinding</em>, which means Rust walks back up the stack and cleans up the data from each function it encounters. But this walking back and cleanup is a lot of work. The alternative is to immediately <em>abort</em>, which ends the program without cleaning up. Memory that the program was using will then need to be cleaned up by the operating system. If in your project you need to make the resulting binary as small as possible, you can switch from unwinding to aborting upon a panic by adding <code>panic = 'abort'</code> to the appropriate <code>[profile]</code> sections in your <em>Cargo.toml</em> file. For example, if you want to abort on panic in release mode, add this:</p> <pre><code class="language-toml">[profile.release] panic = 'abort' </code></pre> </blockquote> <p>Let’s try calling <code>panic!</code> in a simple program:</p> <p><span class="filename">Filename: src/main.rs</span></p> <pre><pre class="playpen"><code class="language-rust should_panic panics">fn main() { panic!("crash and burn"); } </code></pre></pre> <p>When you run the program, you’ll see something like this:</p> <pre><code class="language-text">$ cargo run Compiling panic v0.1.0 (file:///projects/panic) Finished dev [unoptimized + debuginfo] target(s) in 0.25s Running `target/debug/panic` thread 'main' panicked at 'crash and burn', src/main.rs:2:5 note: Run with `RUST_BACKTRACE=1` for a backtrace. </code></pre> <p>The call to <code>panic!</code> causes the error message contained in the last two lines. The first line shows our panic message and the place in our source code where the panic occurred: <em>src/main.rs:2:5</em> indicates that it’s the second line, fifth character of our <em>src/main.rs</em> file.</p> <p>In this case, the line indicated is part of our code, and if we go to that line, we see the <code>panic!</code> macro call. In other cases, the <code>panic!</code> call might be in code that our code calls, and the filename and line number reported by the error message will be someone else’s code where the <code>panic!</code> macro is called, not the line of our code that eventually led to the <code>panic!</code> call. We can use the backtrace of the functions the <code>panic!</code> call came from to figure out the part of our code that is causing the problem. We’ll discuss what a backtrace is in more detail next.</p> <h3><a class="header" href="#using-a-panic-backtrace" id="using-a-panic-backtrace">Using a <code>panic!</code> Backtrace</a></h3> <p>Let’s look at another example to see what it’s like when a <code>panic!</code> call comes from a library because of a bug in our code instead of from our code calling the macro directly. Listing 9-1 has some code that attempts to access an element by index in a vector.</p> <p><span class="filename">Filename: src/main.rs</span></p> <pre><pre class="playpen"><code class="language-rust should_panic panics">fn main() { let v = vec![1, 2, 3]; v[99]; } </code></pre></pre> <p><span class="caption">Listing 9-1: Attempting to access an element beyond the end of a vector, which will cause a call to <code>panic!</code></span></p> <p>Here, we’re attempting to access the 100th element of our vector (which is at index 99 because indexing starts at zero), but it has only 3 elements. In this situation, Rust will panic. Using <code>[]</code> is supposed to return an element, but if you pass an invalid index, there’s no element that Rust could return here that would be correct.</p> <p>Other languages, like C, will attempt to give you exactly what you asked for in this situation, even though it isn’t what you want: you’ll get whatever is at the location in memory that would correspond to that element in the vector, even though the memory doesn’t belong to the vector. This is called a <em>buffer overread</em> and can lead to security vulnerabilities if an attacker is able to manipulate the index in such a way as to read data they shouldn’t be allowed to that is stored after the array.</p> <p>To protect your program from this sort of vulnerability, if you try to read an element at an index that doesn’t exist, Rust will stop execution and refuse to continue. Let’s try it and see:</p> <pre><code class="language-text">$ cargo run Compiling panic v0.1.0 (file:///projects/panic) Finished dev [unoptimized + debuginfo] target(s) in 0.27s Running `target/debug/panic` thread 'main' panicked at 'index out of bounds: the len is 3 but the index is 99', libcore/slice/mod.rs:2448:10 note: Run with `RUST_BACKTRACE=1` for a backtrace. </code></pre> <p>This error points at a file we didn’t write, <em>libcore/slice/mod.rs</em>. That’s the implementation of <code>slice</code> in the Rust source code. The code that gets run when we use <code>[]</code> on our vector <code>v</code> is in <em>libcore/slice/mod.rs</em>, and that is where the <code>panic!</code> is actually happening.</p> <p>The next note line tells us that we can set the <code>RUST_BACKTRACE</code> environment variable to get a backtrace of exactly what happened to cause the error. A <em>backtrace</em> is a list of all the functions that have been called to get to this point. Backtraces in Rust work as they do in other languages: the key to reading the backtrace is to start from the top and read until you see files you wrote. That’s the spot where the problem originated. The lines above the lines mentioning your files are code that your code called; the lines below are code that called your code. These lines might include core Rust code, standard library code, or crates that you’re using. Let’s try getting a backtrace by setting the <code>RUST_BACKTRACE</code> environment variable to any value except 0. Listing 9-2 shows output similar to what you’ll see.</p> <pre><code class="language-text">$ RUST_BACKTRACE=1 cargo run Finished dev [unoptimized + debuginfo] target(s) in 0.00s Running `target/debug/panic` thread 'main' panicked at 'index out of bounds: the len is 3 but the index is 99', libcore/slice/mod.rs:2448:10 stack backtrace: 0: std::sys::unix::backtrace::tracing::imp::unwind_backtrace at libstd/sys/unix/backtrace/tracing/gcc_s.rs:49 1: std::sys_common::backtrace::print at libstd/sys_common/backtrace.rs:71 at libstd/sys_common/backtrace.rs:59 2: std::panicking::default_hook::{{closure}} at libstd/panicking.rs:211 3: std::panicking::default_hook at libstd/panicking.rs:227 4: <std::panicking::begin_panic::PanicPayload<A> as core::panic::BoxMeUp>::get at libstd/panicking.rs:476 5: std::panicking::continue_panic_fmt at libstd/panicking.rs:390 6: std::panicking::try::do_call at libstd/panicking.rs:325 7: core::ptr::drop_in_place at libcore/panicking.rs:77 8: core::ptr::drop_in_place at libcore/panicking.rs:59 9: <usize as core::slice::SliceIndex<[T]>>::index at libcore/slice/mod.rs:2448 10: core::slice::<impl core::ops::index::Index<I> for [T]>::index at libcore/slice/mod.rs:2316 11: <alloc::vec::Vec<T> as core::ops::index::Index<I>>::index at liballoc/vec.rs:1653 12: panic::main at src/main.rs:4 13: std::rt::lang_start::{{closure}} at libstd/rt.rs:74 14: std::panicking::try::do_call at libstd/rt.rs:59 at libstd/panicking.rs:310 15: macho_symbol_search at libpanic_unwind/lib.rs:102 16: std::alloc::default_alloc_error_hook at libstd/panicking.rs:289 at libstd/panic.rs:392 at libstd/rt.rs:58 17: std::rt::lang_start at libstd/rt.rs:74 18: panic::main </code></pre> <p><span class="caption">Listing 9-2: The backtrace generated by a call to <code>panic!</code> displayed when the environment variable <code>RUST_BACKTRACE</code> is set</span></p> <p>That’s a lot of output! The exact output you see might be different depending on your operating system and Rust version. In order to get backtraces with this information, debug symbols must be enabled. Debug symbols are enabled by default when using <code>cargo build</code> or <code>cargo run</code> without the <code>--release</code> flag, as we have here.</p> <p>In the output in Listing 9-2, line 12 of the backtrace points to the line in our project that’s causing the problem: line 4 of <em>src/main.rs</em>. If we don’t want our program to panic, the location pointed to by the first line mentioning a file we wrote is where we should start investigating. In Listing 9-1, where we deliberately wrote code that would panic in order to demonstrate how to use backtraces, the way to fix the panic is to not request an element at index 99 from a vector that only contains 3 items. When your code panics in the future, you’ll need to figure out what action the code is taking with what values to cause the panic and what the code should do instead.</p> <p>We’ll come back to <code>panic!</code> and when we should and should not use <code>panic!</code> to handle error conditions in the <a href="ch09-03-to-panic-or-not-to-panic.html#to-panic-or-not-to-panic">“To <code>panic!</code> or Not to <code>panic!</code>”</a><!-- ignore --> section later in this chapter. 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