Exploring Rust's Result Type

Introduction

In this lab, we will explore the Result type in Rust, which provides a way to handle potential errors instead of possible absence of a value like the Option type. The Result type can have two outcomes - Ok(T) for a successful result with element T, and Err(E) for an error with element E. We will see how to use Result in code examples and how it can be used as the return type of the main function to handle errors and provide a more specific error message.

Note: If the lab does not specify a file name, you can use any file name you want. For example, you can use main.rs, compile and run it with rustc main.rs && ./main.

Result

Result is a richer version of the Option type that describes possible error instead of possible absence.

That is, Result<T, E> could have one of two outcomes:

• Ok(T): An element T was found
• Err(E): An error was found with element E

By convention, the expected outcome is Ok while the unexpected outcome is Err.

Like Option, Result has many methods associated with it. unwrap(), for example, either yields the element T or panics. For case handling, there are many combinators between Result and Option that overlap.

In working with Rust, you will likely encounter methods that return the Result type, such as the parse() method. It might not always be possible to parse a string into the other type, so parse() returns a Result indicating possible failure.

Let's see what happens when we successfully and unsuccessfully parse() a string:

fn multiply(first_number_str: &str, second_number_str: &str) -> i32 {
    // Let's try using `unwrap()` to get the number out. Will it bite us?
    let first_number = first_number_str.parse::<i32>().unwrap();
    let second_number = second_number_str.parse::<i32>().unwrap();
    first_number * second_number
}

fn main() {
    let twenty = multiply("10", "2");
    println!("double is {}", twenty);

    let tt = multiply("t", "2");
    println!("double is {}", tt);
}

In the unsuccessful case, parse() leaves us with an error for unwrap() to panic on. Additionally, the panic exits our program and provides an unpleasant error message.

To improve the quality of our error message, we should be more specific about the return type and consider explicitly handling the error.

Using Result in main

The Result type can also be the return type of the main function if specified explicitly. Typically the main function will be of the form:

fn main() {
    println!("Hello World!");
}

However main is also able to have a return type of Result. If an error occurs within the main function it will return an error code and print a debug representation of the error (using the [Debug] trait). The following example shows such a scenario and touches on aspects covered in [the following section].

use std::num::ParseIntError;

fn main() -> Result<(), ParseIntError> {
    let number_str = "10";
    let number = match number_str.parse::<i32>() {
        Ok(number)  => number,
        Err(e) => return Err(e),
    };
    println!("{}", number);
    Ok(())
}

Summary

Congratulations! You have completed the Result lab. You can practice more labs in LabEx to improve your skills.