Introduction

This is a (non-comprehensive) guide for C# and .NET developers that are completely new to the Rust programming language. Some concepts and constructs translate fairly well between C#/.NET and Rust, but which may be expressed differently, whereas others are a radical departure, like memory management. This guide provides a brief comparison and mapping of those constructs and concepts with concise examples.

The original authors¹ of this guide were themselves C#/.NET developers who were completely new to Rust. This guide is the compilation of the knowledge acquired by the authors writing Rust code over the course of several months. It is the guide the authors wish they had when they started on their Rust journey. That said, the authors would encourage you to read books and other material available on the Web to embrace Rust and its idioms rather than attempting to learn it exclusively through the lens of C# and .NET. Meanwhile, this guide can help answers some question quickly, like: Does Rust support inheritance, threading, asynchronous programming, etc.?

Assumptions:

• Reader is a seasoned C#/.NET developer.
• Reader is completely new to Rust.

Goals:

• Provide a brief comparison and mapping of various C#/.NET topics to their counterparts in Rust.
• Provide links to Rust reference, book and articles for further reading on topics.

Non-goals:

• Discussion of design patterns and architectures.
• Tutorial on the Rust language.
• Reader is proficient in Rust after reading this guide.
• While there are short examples that contrast C# and Rust code for some topics, this guide is not meant to be a cookbook of coding recipes in the two languages.

License

Copyright © Microsoft Corporation.
Portions Copyright © 2010 The Rust Project Developers

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE

Contributing

You are invited to contribute 💖 to this guide by opening issues and submitting pull requests!

Here are some ideas 💡 for how and where you can help most with contributions:

• Fix any spelling or grammatical mistakes you see as you read.

• Fix technical inaccuracies.

• Fix logical or compilation errors in code examples.

• Improve the English, especially if it's your native tongue or you have excellent proficiency in the language.

• Expand an explanation to provide more context or improve the clarity of some topic or concept.

• Keep it fresh with changes in C#, .NET and Rust. For example, if there is a change in C# or Rust that brings the two languages closer together then some parts, including sample code, may need revision.

If you're making a small to modest correction, such fixing a spelling error or a syntax error in a code example, then feel free to submit a pull request directly. For changes that may require a large effort on your part (and reviewers as a result), it is strongly recommended that you submit an issue and seek approval of the maintainers/editors before investing your time. It will avoid heartbreak 💔 if the pull request is rejected for various reasons.

Making quick contributions has been made super simple. If you see an error on a page and happen to be online, you can click edit icon 📝 in the corner of the page to edit the Markdown source of the content and submit a change.

Contribution Guidelines

• Stick to the goals of this guide laid out in the introduction; put another way, avoid the non-goals!

• Prefer to keep text short and use short, concise and realistic code examples to illustrate a point.

• As much as it is possible, always provide and compare examples in Rust and C#.

• Feel free to use latest C#/Rust language features if it makes an example simpler, concise and alike across the two languages.

• Avoid using community packages in C# examples. Stick to the .NET Base Class Library as much as possible. Since the Rust Standard Library has a much smaller API surface, it is more acceptable to call out crates for some functionality, should it be necessary for illustration (like rand for random number generation), but make sure they are mature, popular and trusted.

• Make example code as self-contained as possible and runnable (unless the idea is to illustrate a compile-time or run-time error).

• Maintain the general style of this guide, which is to avoid using you as if the reader is being told or instructed; use the third-person voice instead. For example, instead of saying, “You represent optional data in Rust with the Option<T> type”, write instead, “Rust has the Option<T> type that is used to represent optional data”.

Getting Started

Rust Playground

The easiest way to get started with Rust without needing any local installation is to use the Rust Playground. It is a minimal development front-end that runs in the Web browser and allows writing and running Rust code.

Dev Container

The execution environment of the Rust Playground has some limitations, such as total compilation/execution time, memory and networking so another option that does not require installing Rust would be to use a dev container, such as the one provided in the repository https://github.com/microsoft/vscode-remote-try-rust. Like Rust Playground, the dev container can be run directly in a Web browser using GitHub Codespaces or locally using Visual Studio Code.

Local Install

For a complete local installation of Rust compiler and its development tools, see the Installation section of the Getting Started chapter in the The Rust Programming Language book, or the Install page at rust-lang.org.

Language

This sections compares C# and Rust language features.

Scalar Types

The following table lists the primitive types in Rust and their equivalent in C# and .NET:

Notes:

1. char in Rust and Char in .NET have different definitions. In Rust, a char is 4 bytes wide that is a Unicode scalar value, but in .NET, a Char is 2 bytes wide and stores the character using the UTF-16 encoding. For more information, see the Rust char documentation.

2. While a unit () (an empty tuple) in Rust is an expressible value, the closest cousin in C# would be void to represent nothing. However, void isn't an expressible value except when using pointers and unsafe code. .NET has ValueTuple that is an empty tuple, but C# does not have a literal syntax like () to represent it. ValueTuple can be used in C#, but it's very uncommon. Unlike C#, F# does have a unit type like Rust.

3. While void and object are not scalar types (even though scalars like int are sub-classes of object in the .NET type hierarchy), they have been included in the above table for convenience.

See also:

• Primitives (Rust By Example)

Strings

There are two string types in Rust: String and &str. The former is allocated on the heap and the latter is a slice of a String or a &str.

The mapping of those to .NET is shown in the following table:

There are differences in working with strings in Rust and .NET, but the equivalents above should be a good starting point. One of the differences is that Rust strings are UTF-8 encoded, but .NET strings are UTF-16 encoded. Further .NET strings are immutable, but Rust strings can be mutable when declared as such, for example let s = &mut String::from("hello");.

There are also differences in using strings due to the concept of ownership. To read more about ownership with the String Type, see the Rust Book.

Notes:

1. The Box<str> type in Rust is equivalent to the String type in .NET. The difference between the Box<str> and String types in Rust is that the former stores pointer and size while the latter stores pointer, size, and capacity, allowing String to grow in size. This is similar to the StringBuilder type in .NET once the Rust String is declared mutable.

C#:

ReadOnlySpan<char> span = "Hello, World!";
string str = "Hello, World!";
StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder("Hello, World!");

Rust:

let span: &str = "Hello, World!";
let str = Box::new("Hello World!");
let mut sb = String::from("Hello World!");

String Literals

String literals in .NET are immutable String types and allocated on the heap. In Rust, they are &'static str, which is immutable and has a global lifetime and does not get allocated on the heap; they're embedded in the compiled binary.

C#

string str = "Hello, World!";

Rust

let str: &'static str = "Hello, World!";

C# verbatim string literals are equivalent to Rust raw string literals.

C#

string str = @"Hello, \World/!";

Rust

let str = r#"Hello, \World/!"#;

C# UTF-8 string literals are equivalent to Rust byte string literals.

C#

ReadOnlySpan<byte> str = "hello"u8;

Rust

let str = b"hello";

String Interpolation

C# has a built-in string interpolation feature that allows you to embed expressions inside a string literal. The following example shows how to use string interpolation in C#:

string name = "John";
int age = 42;
string str = $"Person {{ Name: {name}, Age: {age} }}";

Rust does not have a built-in string interpolation feature. Instead, the format! macro is used to format a string. The following example shows how to use string interpolation in Rust:

let name = "John";
let age = 42;
let str = format!("Person {{ name: {name}, age: {age} }}");

Custom classes and structs can also be interpolated in C# due to the fact that the ToString() method is available for each type as it inherits from object.

class Person
{
    public string Name { get; set; }
    public int Age { get; set; }

    public override string ToString() =>
        $"Person {{ Name: {Name}, Age: {Age} }}";
}

var person = new Person { Name = "John", Age = 42 };
Console.Writeline(person);

In Rust, there is no default formatting implemented/inherited for each type. Instead, the std::fmt::Display trait must be implemented for each type that needs to be converted to a string.

use std::fmt::*;

struct Person {
    name: String,
    age: i32,
}

impl Display for Person {
    fn fmt(&self, f: &mut Formatter<'_>) -> Result {
        write!(f, "Person {{ name: {}, age: {} }}", self.name, self.age)
    }
}

let person = Person {
    name: "John".to_owned(),
    age: 42,
};

println!("{person}");

Another option is to use the std::fmt::Debug trait. The Debug trait is implemented for all standard types and can be used to print the internal representation of a type. The following example shows how to use the derive attribute to print the internal representation of a custom struct using the Debug macro. This declaration is used to automatically implement the Debug trait for the Person struct:

#[derive(Debug)]
struct Person {
    name: String,
    age: i32,
}

let person = Person {
    name: "John".to_owned(),
    age: 42,
};

println!("{person:?}");

Note: Using the :? format specifier will use the Debug trait to print the struct, where leaving it out will use the Display trait.

See also:

• Rust by Example - Debug

Structured Types

Commonly used object and collection types in .NET and their mapping to Rust

Array

Fixed arrays are supported the same way in Rust as in .NET

C#:

int[] someArray = new int[2] { 1, 2 };

Rust:

let someArray: [i32; 2] = [1,2];

List

In Rust the equivalent of a List<T> is a Vec<T>. Arrays can be converted to Vecs and vice versa.

C#:

var something = new List<string>
{
    "a",
    "b"
};

something.Add("c");

Rust:

let mut something = vec![
    "a".to_owned(),
    "b".to_owned()
];

something.push("c".to_owned());

Tuples

C#:

var something = (1, 2)
Console.WriteLine($"a = {something.Item1} b = {something.Item2}");

Rust:

let something = (1, 2);
println!("a = {} b = {}", something.0, something.1);

// deconstruction supported
let (a, b) = something;
println!("a = {} b = {}", a, b);

NOTE: Rust tuple elements cannot be named like in C#. The only way to access a tuple element is by using the index of the element or deconstructing the tuple.

Dictionary

In Rust the equivalent of a Dictionary<TKey, TValue> is a Hashmap<K, V>.

C#:

var something = new Dictionary<string, string>
{
    { "Foo", "Bar" },
    { "Baz", "Qux" }
};

something.Add("hi", "there");

Rust:

let mut something = HashMap::from([
    ("Foo".to_owned(), "Bar".to_owned()),
    ("Baz".to_owned(), "Qux".to_owned())
]);

something.insert("hi".to_owned(), "there".to_owned());

See also:

• Rust's standard library - Collections

Custom Types

The following sections discuss various topics and constructs related to developing custom types:

• Classes
• Records
• Structures
• Interfaces
• Enumeration Types
• Members

Classes

Rust doesn't have classes. It only has structures or struct.

Records

Rust doesn't have any construct for authoring records, neither like record struct nor record class in C#.

Structures (struct)

Structures in Rust and C# share a few similarities:

• They are defined with the struct keyword, but in Rust, struct simply defines the data/fields. The behavioural aspects in terms of functions and methods, are defined separately in an implementation block (impl).

• They can implement multiple traits in Rust just as they can implement multiple interfaces in C#.

• They cannot be sub-classed.

• They are allocated on stack by default, unless:

  • In .NET, boxed or cast to an interface.
  • In Rust, wrapped in a smart pointer like Box, Rc/Arc.

In C#, a struct is a way to model a value type in .NET, which is typically some domain-specific primitive or compound with value equality semantics. In Rust, a struct is the primary construct for modeling any data structure (the other being an enum).

A struct (or record struct) in C# has copy-by-value and value equality semantics by default, but in Rust, this requires just one more step using the #derive attribute and listing the traits to be implemented:

#[derive(Clone, Copy, PartialEq, Eq, Hash)]
struct Point {
    x: i32,
    y: i32,
}

Value types in C#/.NET are usually designed by a developer to be immutable. It's considered best practice speaking semantically, but the language does not prevent designing a struct that makes destructive or in-place modifications. In Rust, it's the same. A type has to be consciously developed to be immutable.

Since Rust doesn't have classes and consequently type hierarchies based on sub-classing, shared behaviour is achieved via traits and generics and polymorphism via virtual dispatch using trait objects.

Consider following struct representing a rectangle in C#:

struct Rectangle
{
    public Rectangle(int x1, int y1, int x2, int y2) =>
        (X1, Y1, X2, Y2) = (x1, y1, x2, y2);

    public int X1 { get; }
    public int Y1 { get; }
    public int X2 { get; }
    public int Y2 { get; }

    public int Length => Y2 - Y1;
    public int Width => X2 - X1;

    public (int, int) TopLeft => (X1, Y1);
    public (int, int) BottomRight => (X2, Y2);

    public int Area => Length * Width;
    public bool IsSquare => Width == Length;

    public override string ToString() => $"({X1}, {Y1}), ({X2}, {Y2})";
}

The equivalent in Rust would be:

#![allow(dead_code)]

struct Rectangle {
    x1: i32, y1: i32,
    x2: i32, y2: i32,
}

impl Rectangle {
    pub fn new(x1: i32, y1: i32, x2: i32, y2: i32) -> Self {
        Self { x1, y1, x2, y2 }
    }

    pub fn x1(&self) -> i32 { self.x1 }
    pub fn y1(&self) -> i32 { self.y1 }
    pub fn x2(&self) -> i32 { self.x2 }
    pub fn y2(&self) -> i32 { self.y2 }

    pub fn length(&self) -> i32 {
        self.y2 - self.y1
    }

    pub fn width(&self)  -> i32 {
        self.x2 - self.x1
    }

    pub fn top_left(&self) -> (i32, i32) {
        (self.x1, self.y1)
    }

    pub fn bottom_right(&self) -> (i32, i32) {
        (self.x2, self.y2)
    }

    pub fn area(&self)  -> i32 {
        self.length() * self.width()
    }

    pub fn is_square(&self)  -> bool {
        self.width() == self.length()
    }
}

use std::fmt::*;

impl Display for Rectangle {
    fn fmt(&self, f: &mut Formatter<'_>) -> Result {
        write!(f, "({}, {}), ({}, {})", self.x1, self.y2, self.x2, self.y2)
    }
}

Note that a struct in C# inherits the ToString method from object and therefore it overrides the base implementation to provide a custom string representation. Since there is no inheritance in Rust, the way a type advertises support for some formatted representation is by implementing the Display trait. This then enables for an instance of the structure to participate in formatting, such as shown in the call to println! below:

fn main() {
    let rect = Rectangle::new(12, 34, 56, 78);
    println!("Rectangle = {rect}");
}

Interfaces

Rust doesn't have interfaces like those found in C#/.NET. It has traits, instead. Similar to an interface, a trait represents an abstraction and its members form a contract that must be fulfilled when implemented on a type.

Just the way interfaces can have default methods in C#/.NET (where a default implementation body is provided as part of the interface definition), so can traits in Rust. The type implementing the interface/trait can subsequently provide a more suitable and/or optimized implementation.

C#/.NET interfaces can have all types of members, from properties, indexers, events to methods, both static- and instance-based. Likewise, traits in Rust can have (instance-based) method, associated functions (think static methods in C#/.NET) and constants.

Apart from class hierarchies, interfaces are a core means of achieving polymorphism via dynamic dispatch for cross-cutting abstractions. They enable general-purpose code to be written against the abstractions represented by the interfaces without much regard to the concrete types implementing them. The same can be achieved with Rust's trait objects in a limited fashion. A trait object is essentially a v-table (virtual table) identified with the dyn keyword followed by the trait name, as in dyn Shape (where Shape is the trait name). Trait objects always live behind a pointer, either a reference (e.g. &dyn Shape) or the heap-allocated Box (e.g. Box<dyn Shape>). This is somewhat like in .NET, where an interface is a reference type such that a value type cast to an interface is automatically boxed onto the managed heap. The passing limitation of trait objects mentioned earlier, is that the original implementing type cannot be recovered. In other words, whereas it's quite common to downcast or test an interface to be an instance of some other interface or sub- or concrete type, the same is not possible in Rust (without additional effort and support).

Enumeration types (enum)

In C#, an enum is a value type that maps symbolic names to integral values:

enum DayOfWeek
{
    Sunday = 0,
    Monday = 1,
    Tuesday = 2,
    Wednesday = 3,
    Thursday = 4,
    Friday = 5,
    Saturday = 6,
}

Rust has practically identical syntax for doing the same:

enum DayOfWeek
{
    Sunday = 0,
    Monday = 1,
    Tuesday = 2,
    Wednesday = 3,
    Thursday = 4,
    Friday = 5,
    Saturday = 6,
}

Unlike in .NET, an instance of an enum type in Rust does not have any pre-defined behaviour that's inherited. It cannot even participate in equality checks as simple as dow == DayOfWeek::Friday. To bring it somewhat on par in function with an enum in C#, use the #derive attribute to automatically have macros implement the commonly needed functionality:

#[derive(Debug,     // enables formatting in "{:?}"
         Clone,     // required by Copy
         Copy,      // enables copy-by-value semantics
         Hash,      // enables hash-ability for use in map types
         PartialEq  // enables value equality (==)
)]
enum DayOfWeek
{
    Sunday = 0,
    Monday = 1,
    Tuesday = 2,
    Wednesday = 3,
    Thursday = 4,
    Friday = 5,
    Saturday = 6,
}

fn main() {
    let dow = DayOfWeek::Wednesday;
    println!("Day of week = {dow:?}");

    if dow == DayOfWeek::Friday {
        println!("Yay! It's the weekend!");
    }

    // coerce to integer
    let dow = dow as i32;
    println!("Day of week = {dow:?}");

    let dow = dow as DayOfWeek;
    println!("Day of week = {dow:?}");
}

As the example above shows, an enum can be coerced to its assigned integral value, but the opposite is not possible as in C# (although that sometimes has the downside in C#/.NET that an enum instance can hold an unrepresented value). Instead, it's up to the developer to provide such a helper function:

impl DayOfWeek {
    fn try_from_i32(n: i32) -> Result<DayOfWeek, i32> {
        use DayOfWeek::*;
        match n {
            0 => Ok(Sunday),
            1 => Ok(Monday),
            2 => Ok(Tuesday),
            3 => Ok(Wednesday),
            4 => Ok(Thursday),
            5 => Ok(Friday),
            6 => Ok(Saturday),
            _ => Err(n)
        }
    }
}

The try_from_i32 function returns a DayOfWeek in a Result indicating success (Ok) if n is valid. Otherwise it returns n as-is in a Result indicating failure (Err):

let dow = DayOfWeek::try_from_i32(5);
println!("{dow:?}"); // prints: Ok(Friday)

let dow = DayOfWeek::try_from_i32(50);
println!("{dow:?}"); // prints: Err(50)

There exist crates in Rust that can help with implementing such mapping from integral types instead of having to code them manually.

An enum type in Rust can also serve as a way to design (discriminated) union types, which allow different variants to hold data specific to each variant. For example:

enum IpAddr {
    V4(u8, u8, u8, u8),
    V6(String),
}

let home = IpAddr::V4(127, 0, 0, 1);
let loopback = IpAddr::V6(String::from("::1"));

This form of enum declaration does not exist in C#, but it can be emulated with (class) records:

var home = new IpAddr.V4(127, 0, 0, 1);
var loopback = new IpAddr.V6("::1");

abstract record IpAddr
{
    public sealed record V4(byte A, byte B, byte C, byte D): IpAddr;
    public sealed record V6(string Address): IpAddr;
}

The difference between the two is that the Rust definition produces a closed type over the variants. In other words, the compiler knows that there will be no other variants of IpAddr except IpAddr::V4 and IpAddr::V6, and it can use that knowledge to make stricter checks. For example, in a match expression that's akin to C#'s switch expression, the Rust compiler will fail code unless all variants are covered. In contrast, the emulation with C# actually creates a class hierarchy (albeit very succinctly expressed) and since IpAddr is an abstract base class, the set of all types it can represent is unknown to the compiler.

Members

Constructors

Rust does not have any notion of constructors. Instead, you just write factory functions that return an instance of the type. The factory functions can be stand-alone or associated functions of the type. In C# terms, associated functions are like having static methods on a type. Conventionally, if there is just one factory function for a struct, it's named new:

struct Rectangle {
    x1: i32, y1: i32,
    x2: i32, y2: i32,
}

impl Rectangle {
    pub fn new(x1: i32, y1: i32, x2: i32, y2: i32) -> Self {
        Self { x1, y1, x2, y2 }
    }
}

Since Rust functions (associated or otherwise) do not support overloading; the factory functions have to be named uniquely. For example, below are some examples of so-called constructors or factory functions available on String:

• String::new: creates an empty string.
• String::with_capacity: creates a string with an initial buffer capacity.
• String::from_utf8: creates a string from bytes of UTF-8 encoded text.
• String::from_utf16: creates a string from bytes of UTF-16 encoded text.

In the case of an enum type in Rust, the variants act as the constructors. See the section on enumeration types for more.

See also:

• Constructors are static, inherent methods (C-CTOR)

Methods (static & instance-based)

Like C#, Rust types (both enum and struct), can have static and instance-based methods. In Rust-speak, a method is always instance-based and is identified by the fact that its first parameter is named self. The self parameter has no type annotation since it's always the type to which the method belongs. A static method is called an associated function. In the example below, new is an associated function and the rest (length, width and area) are methods of the type:

struct Rectangle {
    x1: i32, y1: i32,
    x2: i32, y2: i32,
}

impl Rectangle {
    pub fn new(x1: i32, y1: i32, x2: i32, y2: i32) -> Self {
        Self { x1, y1, x2, y2 }
    }

    pub fn length(&self) -> i32 {
        self.y2 - self.y1
    }

    pub fn width(&self)  -> i32 {
        self.x2 - self.x1
    }

    pub fn area(&self)  -> i32 {
        self.length() * self.width()
    }
}

Constants

Like in C#, a type in Rust can have constants. However, the most interesting aspect to note is that Rust allows a type instance to be defined as a constant too:

struct Point {
    x: i32,
    y: i32,
}

impl Point {
    const ZERO: Point = Point { x: 0, y: 0 };
}

In C#, the same would require a static read-only field:

readonly record struct Point(int X, int Y)
{
    public static readonly Point Zero = new(0, 0);
}

Events

Rust has no built-in support for type members to adverstise and fire events, like C# has with the event keyword.

Properties

In C#, fields of a type are generally private. They are then protected/encapsulated by property members with accessor methods (get and set) to read or write to those field. The accessor methods can contain extra logic, for example, to either validate the value when being set or compute a value when being read. Rust only has methods where a getter is named after the field (in Rust method names can share the same identifier as a field) and the setter uses a set_ prefix.

Below is an example showing how property-like accessor methods typically look for a type in Rust:

struct Rectangle {
    x1: i32, y1: i32,
    x2: i32, y2: i32,
}

impl Rectangle {
    pub fn new(x1: i32, y1: i32, x2: i32, y2: i32) -> Self {
        Self { x1, y1, x2, y2 }
    }

    // like property getters (each shares the same name as the field)

    pub fn x1(&self) -> i32 { self.x1 }
    pub fn y1(&self) -> i32 { self.y1 }
    pub fn x2(&self) -> i32 { self.x2 }
    pub fn y2(&self) -> i32 { self.y2 }

    // like property setters

    pub fn set_x1(&mut self, val: i32) { self.x1 = val }
    pub fn set_y1(&mut self, val: i32) { self.y1 = val }
    pub fn set_x2(&mut self, val: i32) { self.x2 = val }
    pub fn set_y2(&mut self, val: i32) { self.y2 = val }

    // like computed properties

    pub fn length(&self) -> i32 {
        self.y2 - self.y1
    }

    pub fn width(&self)  -> i32 {
        self.x2 - self.x1
    }

    pub fn area(&self)  -> i32 {
        self.length() * self.width()
    }
}

Extension Methods

Extension methods in C# enable the developer to attach new statically-bound methods to existing types, without needing to modify the original definition of the type. In the following C# example, a new Wrap method is added to the StringBuilder class by extension:

using System;
using System.Text;
using Extensions; // (1)

var sb = new StringBuilder("Hello, World!");
sb.Wrap(">>> ", " <<<"); // (2)
Console.WriteLine(sb.ToString()); // Prints: >>> Hello, World! <<<

namespace Extensions
{
    static class StringBuilderExtensions
    {
        public static void Wrap(this StringBuilder sb,
                                string left, string right) =>
            sb.Insert(0, left).Append(right);
    }
}

Note that for an extension method to become available (2), the namespace with the type containing the extension method must be imported (1). Rust offers a very similar facility via traits, called extension traits. The following example in Rust is the equivalent of the C# example above; it extends String with the method wrap:

#![allow(dead_code)]

mod exts {
    pub trait StrWrapExt {
        fn wrap(&mut self, left: &str, right: &str);
    }

    impl StrWrapExt for String {
        fn wrap(&mut self, left: &str, right: &str) {
            self.insert_str(0, left);
            self.push_str(right);
        }
    }
}

fn main() {
    use exts::StrWrapExt as _; // (1)

    let mut s = String::from("Hello, World!");
    s.wrap(">>> ", " <<<"); // (2)
    println!("{s}"); // Prints: >>> Hello, World! <<<
}

Just like in C#, for the method in the extension trait to become available (2), the extension trait must be imported (1). Also note, the extension trait identifier StrWrapExt can itself be discarded via _ at the time of import without affecting the availability of wrap for String.

Visibility/Access modifiers

C# has a number of accessibility or visibility modifiers:

• private
• protected
• internal
• protected internal (family)
• public

In Rust, a compilation is built-up of a tree of modules where modules contain and define items like types, traits, enums, constants and functions. Almost everything is private by default. One exception is, for example, associated items in a public trait, which are public by default. This is similar to how members of a C# interface declared without any public modifiers in the source code are public by default. Rust only has the pub modifier to change the visibility with respect to the module tree. There are variations of pub that change the scope of the public visibility:

• pub(self)
• pub(super)
• pub(crate)
• pub(in PATH)

For more details, see the Visibility and Privacy section of The Rust Reference.

The table below is an approximation of the mapping of C# and Rust modifiers:

1. There is no keyword to denote private visibility; it's the default in Rust.

2. Since there are no class-based type hierarchies in Rust, there is no equivalent of protected.

Mutability

When designing a type in C#, it is the responsiblity of the developer to decide whether the a type is mutable or immutable; whether it supports destructive or non-destructive mutations. C# does support an immutable design for types with a positional record declaration (record class or readonly record struct). In Rust, mutability is expressed on methods through the type of the self parameter as shown in the example below:

struct Point { x: i32, y: i32 }

impl Point {
    pub fn new(x: i32, y: i32) -> Self {
        Self { x, y }
    }

    // self is not mutable

    pub fn x(&self) -> i32 { self.x }
    pub fn y(&self) -> i32 { self.y }

    // self is mutable

    pub fn set_x(&mut self, val: i32) { self.x = val }
    pub fn set_y(&mut self, val: i32) { self.y = val }
}

In C#, you can do non-destructive mutations using with:

var pt = new Point(123, 456);
pt = pt with { X = 789 };
Console.WriteLine(pt.ToString()); // prints: Point { X = 789, Y = 456 }

readonly record struct Point(int X, int Y);

There is no with in Rust, but to emulate something similar in Rust, it has to be baked into the type's design:

struct Point { x: i32, y: i32 }

impl Point {
    pub fn new(x: i32, y: i32) -> Self {
        Self { x, y }
    }

    pub fn x(&self) -> i32 { self.x }
    pub fn y(&self) -> i32 { self.y }

    // following methods consume self and return a new instance

    pub fn set_x(self, val: i32) -> Self { Self::new(val, self.y) }
    pub fn set_y(self, val: i32) -> Self { Self::new(self.x, val) }
}

In C#, with can also be used with a regular (as opposed to record) struct that publicly exposes its read-write fields:

struct Point
{
    public int X;
    public int Y;

    public override string ToString() => $"({X}, {Y})";
}

var pt = new Point { X = 123, Y = 456 };
Console.WriteLine(pt.ToString()); // prints: (123, 456)
pt = pt with { X = 789 };
Console.WriteLine(pt.ToString()); // prints: (789, 456)

Rust has a struct update syntax that may seem similar:

mod points {
    #[derive(Debug)]
    pub struct Point { pub x: i32, pub y: i32 }
}

fn main() {
    use points::Point;
    let pt = Point { x: 123, y: 456 };
    println!("{pt:?}"); // prints: Point { x: 123, y: 456 }
    let pt = Point { x: 789, ..pt };
    println!("{pt:?}"); // prints: Point { x: 789, y: 456 }
}

However, while with in C# does a non-destructive mutation (copy then update), the struct update syntax does (partial) moves and works with fields only. Since the syntax requires access to the type's fields, it is generally more common to use it within the Rust module that has access to private details of its types.

Local Functions

C# and Rust offer local functions, but local functions in Rust are limited to the equivalent of static local functions in C#. In other words, local functions in Rust cannot use variables from their surrounding lexical scope; but closures can.

Lambda and Closures

C# and Rust allow functions to be used as first-class values that enable writing higher-order functions. Higher-order functions are essentially functions that accept other functions as arguments to allow for the caller to participate in the code of the called function. In C#, type-safe function pointers are represented by delegates with the most common ones being Func and Action. The C# language allows ad-hoc instances of these delegates to be created through lambda expressions.

Rust has function pointers too with the fn type being the simplest:

fn do_twice(f: fn(i32) -> i32, arg: i32) -> i32 {
    f(arg) + f(arg)
}

fn main() {
    let answer = do_twice(|x| x + 1, 5);
    println!("The answer is: {}", answer); // Prints: The answer is: 12
}

However, Rust makes a distinction between function pointers (where fn defines a type) and closures: a closure can reference variables from its surrounding lexical scope, but not a function pointer. While C# also has function pointers (*delegate), the managed and type-safe equivalent would be a static lambda expression.

Functions and methods that accept closures are written with generic types that are bound to one of the traits representing functions: Fn, FnMut and FnOnce. When it's time to provide a value for a function pointer or a closure, a Rust developer uses a closure expression (like |x| x + 1 in the example above), which translates to the same as a lambda expression in C#. Whether the closure expression creates a function pointer or a closure depends on whether the closure expression references its context or not.

When a closure captures variables from its environment then ownership rules come into play because the ownership ends up with the closure. For more information, see the “Moving Captured Values Out of Closures and the Fn Traits” section of The Rust Programming Language.

Variables

Consider the following example around variable assignment in C#:

int x = 5;

And the same in Rust:

let x: i32 = 5;

So far, the only visible difference between the two languages is that the position of the type declaration is different. Also, both C# and Rust are type-safe: the compiler guarantees that the value stored in a variable is always of the designated type. The example can be simplified by using the compiler's ability to automatically infer the types of the variable. In C#:

var x = 5;

In Rust:

let x = 5;

When expanding the first example to update the value of the variable (reassignment), the behavior of C# and Rust differ:

var x = 5;
x = 6;
Console.WriteLine(x); // 6

In Rust, the identical statement will not compile:

let x = 5;
x = 6; // Error: cannot assign twice to immutable variable 'x'.
println!("{}", x);

In Rust, variables are immutable by default. Once a value is bound to a name, the variable's value cannot be changed. Variables can be made mutable by adding mut in front of the variable name:

let mut x = 5;
x = 6;
println!("{}", x); // 6

Rust offers an alternative to fix the example above that does not require mutability through variable shadowing:

let x = 5;
let x = 6;
println!("{}", x); // 6

C# also supports shadowing, e.g. locals can shadow fields and type members can shadow members from the base type. In Rust, the above example demonstrates that shadowing also allows to change the type of a variable without changing the name, which is useful if one wants to transform the data into different types and shapes without having to come up with a distinct name each time.

See also:

• Data races and race conditions for more information around the implications of mutability
• Scope and shadowing
• Memory management for explanations around moving and ownership

Namespaces

Namespaces are used in .NET to organize types, as well as for controlling the scope of types and methods in projects.

In Rust, namespace refers to a different concept. The equivalent of a namespace in Rust is a module. For both C# and Rust, visibility of items can be restricted using access modifiers, respectively visibility modifiers. In Rust, the default visibility is private (with only few exceptions). The equivalent of C#'s public is pub in Rust, and internal corresponds to pub(crate). For more fine-grained access control, refer to the visibility modifiers reference.

Equality

When comparing for equality in C#, this refers to testing for equivalence in some cases (also known as value equality), and in other cases it refers to testing for reference equality, which tests whether two variables refer to the same underlying object in memory. Every custom type can be compared for equality because it inherits from System.Object (or System.ValueType for value types, which inherits from System.Object), using either one of the abovementioned semantics.

For example, when comparing for equivalence and reference equality in C#:

var a = new Point(1, 2);
var b = new Point(1, 2);
var c = a;
Console.WriteLine(a == b); // (1) True
Console.WriteLine(a.Equals(b)); // (1) True
Console.WriteLine(a.Equals(new Point(2, 2))); // (1) False
Console.WriteLine(ReferenceEquals(a, b)); // (2) False
Console.WriteLine(ReferenceEquals(a, c)); // (2) True

record Point(int X, int Y);

1. The equality operator == and the Equals method on the record Point compare for value equality, since records support value-type equality by default.

2. Comparing for reference equality tests whether the variables refer to the same underlying object in memory.

Equivalently in Rust:

#[derive(Copy, Clone)]
struct Point(i32, i32);

fn main() {
    let a = Point(1, 2);
    let b = Point(1, 2);
    let c = a;
    println!("{}", a == b); // Error: "an implementation of `PartialEq<_>` might be missing for `Point`"
    println!("{}", a.eq(&b));
    println!("{}", a.eq(&Point(2, 2)));
}

The compiler error above illustrates that in Rust equality comparisons are always related to a trait implementation. To support a comparison using ==, a type must implement PartialEq.

Fixing the example above means deriving PartialEq for Point. Per default, deriving PartialEq will compare all fields for equality, which therefore have to implement PartialEq themselves. This is comparable to the equality for records in C#.

#[derive(Copy, Clone, PartialEq)]
struct Point(i32, i32);

fn main() {
    let a = Point(1, 2);
    let b = Point(1, 2);
    let c = a;
    println!("{}", a == b); // true
    println!("{}", a.eq(&b)); // true
    println!("{}", a.eq(&Point(2, 2))); // false
    println!("{}", a.eq(&c)); // true
}

See also:

• Eq for a stricter version of PartialEq.

Generics

Generics in C# provide a way to create definitions for types and methods that can be parameterized over other types. This improves code reuse, type-safety and performance (e.g. avoid run-time casts). Consider the following example of a generic type that adds a timestamp to any value:

using System;

sealed record Timestamped<T>(DateTime Timestamp, T Value)
{
    public Timestamped(T value) : this(DateTime.UtcNow, value) { }
}

Rust also has generics as shown by the equivalent of the above:

use std::time::*;

struct Timestamped<T> { value: T, timestamp: SystemTime }

impl<T> Timestamped<T> {
    fn new(value: T) -> Self {
        Self { value, timestamp: SystemTime::now() }
    }
}

See also:

• Generic data types

Generic type constraints

In C#, generic types can be constrained using the where clause. The following example shows such constraints in C#:

using System;

// Note: records automatically implement `IEquatable`. The following
// implementation shows this explicitly for a comparison to Rust.
sealed record Timestamped<T>(DateTime Timestamp, T Value) :
    IEquatable<Timestamped<T>>
    where T : IEquatable<T>
{
    public Timestamped(T value) : this(DateTime.UtcNow, value) { }

    public bool Equals(Timestamped<T>? other) =>
        other is { } someOther
        && Timestamp == someOther.Timestamp
        && Value.Equals(someOther.Value);

    public override int GetHashCode() => HashCode.Combine(Timestamp, Value);
}

The same can be achieved in Rust:

use std::time::*;

struct Timestamped<T> { value: T, timestamp: SystemTime }

impl<T> Timestamped<T> {
    fn new(value: T) -> Self {
        Self { value, timestamp: SystemTime::now() }
    }
}

impl<T> PartialEq for Timestamped<T>
    where T: PartialEq {
    fn eq(&self, other: &Self) -> bool {
        self.value == other.value && self.timestamp == other.timestamp
    }
}

Generic type constraints are called bounds in Rust.

In C# version, Timestamped<T> instances can only be created for T which implement IEquatable<T> themselves, but note that the Rust version is more flexible because it Timestamped<T> conditionally implements PartialEq. This means that Timestamped<T> instances can still be created for some non-equatable T, but then Timestamped<T> will not implement equality via PartialEq for such a T.

See also:

• Traits as parameters
• Returning types that implement traits

Polymorphism

Rust does not support classes and sub-classing therefore polymorphism can't be achieved in an identical manner to C#.

See also:

• Virtual dispatch using trait objects, as explained in the Structures section
• Generics
• Inheritance
• Operator overloading

Inheritance

As explained in structures section, Rust does not provide (class-based) inheritance as in C#. A way to provide shared behavior between structs is via making use of traits. However, similar to interface inheritance in C#, Rust allows to define relationships between traits by using supertraits.

Exception Handling

In .NET, an exception is a type that inherits from the System.Exception class. Exceptions are thrown if a problem occurs in a code section. A thrown exception is passed up the stack until the application handles it or the program terminates.

Rust does not have exceptions, but distinguishes between recoverable and unrecoverable errors instead. A recoverable error represents a problem that should be reported, but for which the program continues. Results of operations that can fail with recoverable errors are of type Result<T, E>, where E is the type of the error variant. The panic! macro stops execution when the program encounters an unrecoverable error. An unrecoverable error is always a symptom of a bug.

Custom error types

In .NET, custom exceptions derive from the Exception class. The documentation on how to create user-defined exceptions mentions the following example:

public class EmployeeListNotFoundException : Exception
{
    public EmployeeListNotFoundException() { }

    public EmployeeListNotFoundException(string message)
        : base(message) { }

    public EmployeeListNotFoundException(string message, Exception inner)
        : base(message, inner) { }
}

In Rust, one can implement the basic expectations for error values by implementing the Error trait. The minimal user-defined error implementation in Rust is:

#[derive(Debug)]
pub struct EmployeeListNotFound;

impl std::fmt::Display for EmployeeListNotFound {
    fn fmt(&self, f: &mut std::fmt::Formatter<'_>) -> std::fmt::Result {
        f.write_str("Could not find employee list.")
    }
}

impl std::error::Error for EmployeeListNotFound {}

The equivalent to the .NET Exception.InnerException property is the Error::source() method in Rust. However, it is not required to provide an implementation for Error::source(), the blanket (default) implementation returns a None.

Raising exceptions

To raise an exception in C#, throw an instance of the exception:

void ThrowIfNegative(int value)
{
    if (value < 0)
    {
        throw new ArgumentOutOfRangeException(nameof(value));
    }
}

For recoverable errors in Rust, return an Ok or Err variant from a method:

fn error_if_negative(value: i32) -> Result<(), &'static str> {
    if value < 0 {
        Err("Specified argument was out of the range of valid values. (Parameter 'value')")
    } else {
        Ok(())
    }
}

The panic! macro creates unrecoverable errors:

fn panic_if_negative(value: i32) {
    if value < 0 {
        panic!("Specified argument was out of the range of valid values. (Parameter 'value')")
    }
}

Error propagation

In .NET, exceptions are passed up the stack until they are handled or the program terminates. In Rust, unrecoverable errors behave similarly, but handling them is uncommon.

Recoverable errors, however, need to be propagated and handled explicitly. Their presence is always indicated by the Rust function or method signature. Catching an exception allows you to take action based on the presence or absence of an error in C#:

void Write()
{
    try
    {
        File.WriteAllText("file.txt", "content");
    }
    catch (IOException)
    {
        Console.WriteLine("Writing to file failed.");
    }
}

In Rust, this is roughly equivalent to:

fn write() {
    match std::fs::File::create("temp.txt")
        .and_then(|mut file| std::io::Write::write_all(&mut file, b"content"))
    {
        Ok(_) => {}
        Err(_) => println!("Writing to file failed."),
    };
}

Frequently, recoverable errors need only be propagated instead of being handled. For this, the method signature needs to be compatible with the types of the propagated error. The ? operator propagates errors ergonomically:

fn write() -> Result<(), std::io::Error> {
    let mut file = std::fs::File::create("file.txt")?;
    std::io::Write::write_all(&mut file, b"content")?;
    Ok(())
}

Note: to propagate an error with the question mark operator the error implementations need to be compatible, as described in a shortcut for propagating errors. The most general "compatible" error type is the error trait object Box<dyn Error>.

Stack traces

Throwing an unhandled exception in .NET will cause the runtime to print a stack trace that allows debugging the problem with additional context.

For unrecoverable errors in Rust, panic! Backtraces offer a similar behavior.

Recoverable errors in stable Rust do not yet support Backtraces, but it is currently supported in experimental Rust when using the provide method.

Nullability and Optionality

In C#, null is often used to represent a value that is missing, absent or logically uninitialized. For example:

int? some = 1;
int? none = null;

Rust has no null and consequently no nullable context to enable. Optional or missing values are instead represented by Option<T>. The equivalent of the C# code above in Rust would be:

let some: Option<i32> = Some(1);
let none: Option<i32> = None;

Option<T> in Rust is practically identical to 'T option from F#.

Control flow with optionality

In C#, you may have been using if/else statements for controlling the flow when using nullable values.

uint? max = 10;
if (max is { } someMax)
{
    Console.WriteLine($"The maximum is {someMax}."); // The maximum is 10.
}

You can use pattern matching to achieve the same behavior in Rust:

let max = Some(10u32);
match max {
    Some(max) => println!("The maximum is {}.", max), // The maximum is 10.
    None => ()
}

It would even be more concise to use if let:

let max = Some(10u32);
if let Some(max) = max {
    println!("The maximum is {}.", max); // The maximum is 10.
}

Null-conditional operators

The null-conditional operators (?. and ?[]) make dealing with null in C# more ergonomic. In Rust, they are best replaced by using the map method. The following snippets show the correspondence:

string? some = "Hello, World!";
string? none = null;
Console.WriteLine(some?.Length); // 13
Console.WriteLine(none?.Length); // (blank)

let some: Option<String> = Some(String::from("Hello, World!"));
let none: Option<String> = None;
println!("{:?}", some.map(|s| s.len())); // Some(13)
println!("{:?}", none.map(|s| s.len())); // None

Null-coalescing operator

The null-coalescing operator (??) is typically used to default to another value when a nullable is null:

int? some = 1;
int? none = null;
Console.WriteLine(some ?? 0); // 1
Console.WriteLine(none ?? 0); // 0

In Rust, you can use unwrap_or to get the same behavior:

let some: Option<i32> = Some(1);
let none: Option<i32> = None;
println!("{:?}", some.unwrap_or(0)); // 1
println!("{:?}", none.unwrap_or(0)); // 0

Note: If the default value is expensive to compute, you can use unwrap_or_else instead. It takes a closure as an argument, which allows you to lazily initialize the default value.

Null-forgiving operator

The null-forgiving operator (!) does not correspond to an equivalent construct in Rust, as it only affects the compiler's static flow analysis in C#. In Rust, there is no need to use a substitute for it.

Discards

In C#, discards express to the compiler and others to ignore the results (or parts) of an expression.

There are multiple contexts where to apply this, for example as a basic example, to ignore the result of an expression. In C# this looks like:

_ = city.GetCityInformation(cityName);

In Rust, ignoring the result of an expression looks identical:

_ = city.get_city_information(city_name);

Discards are also applied for deconstructing tuples in C#:

var (_, second) = ("first", "second");

and, identically, in Rust:

let (_, second) = ("first", "second");

In addition to destructuring tuples, Rust offers destructuring of structs and enums using .., where .. stands for the remaining part of a type:

struct Point {
    x: i32,
    y: i32,
    z: i32,
}

let origin = Point { x: 0, y: 0, z: 0 };

match origin {
    Point { x, .. } => println!("x is {}", x), // x is 0
}

When pattern matching, it is often useful to discard or ignore part of a matching expression, e.g. in C#:

_ = ("first", "second") switch
{
    ("first", _) => "first element matched",
    (_, _) => "first element did not match"
};

and again, this looks almost identical in Rust:

_ = match ("first", "second")
{
    ("first", _) => "first element matched",
    (_, _) => "first element did not match"
};

Conversion and Casting

Both C# and Rust are statically-typed at compile time. Hence, after a variable is declared, assigning a value of a value of a different type (unless it's implicitly convertible to the target type) to the variable is prohibited. There are several ways to convert types in C# that have an equivalent in Rust.

Implicit conversions

Implicit conversions exist in C# as well as in Rust (called type coercions). Consider the following example:

int intNumber = 1;
long longNumber = intNumber;

Rust is much more restrictive with respect to which type coercions are allowed:

let int_number: i32 = 1;
let long_number: i64 = int_number; // error: expected `i64`, found `i32`

An example for a valid implicit conversion using subtyping is:

fn bar<'a>() {
    let s: &'static str = "hi";
    let t: &'a str = s;
}

See also:

• Deref coercion
• Subtyping and variance

Explicit conversions

If converting could cause a loss of information, C# requires explicit conversions using a casting expression:

double a = 1.2;
int b = (int)a;

Explicit conversions can potentially fail at run-time with exceptions like OverflowException or InvalidCastException when down-casting.

Rust does not provide coercion between primitive types, but instead uses explicit conversion using the as keyword (casting). Casting in Rust will not cause a panic.

let int_number: i32 = 1;
let long_number: i64 = int_number as _;

Custom conversion

Commonly, .NET types provide user-defined conversion operators to convert one type to another type. Also, System.IConvertible serves the purpose of converting one type into another.

In Rust, the standard library contains an abstraction for converting a value into a different type, in form of the From trait and its reciprocal, Into. When implementing From for a type, a default implementation for Into is automatically provided (called blanket implementation in Rust). The following example illustrates two of such type conversions:

fn main() {
    let my_id = MyId("id".into()); // `into()` is implemented automatically due to the `From<&str>` trait implementation for `String`.
    println!("{}", String::from(my_id)); // This uses the `From<MyId>` implementation for `String`.
}

struct MyId(String);

impl From<MyId> for String {
    fn from(MyId(value): MyId) -> Self {
        value
    }
}

See also:

• TryFrom and TryInto for versions of From and Into which can fail.

Operator overloading

A custom type can overload an overloadable operator in C#. Consider the following example in C#:

Console.WriteLine(new Fraction(5, 4) + new Fraction(1, 2));  // 14/8

public readonly record struct Fraction(int Numerator, int Denominator)
{
    public static Fraction operator +(Fraction a, Fraction b) =>
        new(a.Numerator * b.Denominator + b.Numerator * a.Denominator, a.Denominator * b.Denominator);

    public override string ToString() => $"{Numerator}/{Denominator}";
}

In Rust, many operators can be overloaded via traits. This is possible because operators are syntactic sugar for method calls. For example, the + operator in a + b calls the add method (see operator overloading):

use std::{fmt::{Display, Formatter, Result}, ops::Add};

struct Fraction {
    numerator: i32,
    denominator: i32,
}

impl Display for Fraction {
    fn fmt(&self, f: &mut Formatter<'_>) -> Result {
        f.write_fmt(format_args!("{}/{}", self.numerator, self.denominator))
    }
}

impl Add<Fraction> for Fraction {
    type Output = Fraction;

    fn add(self, rhs: Fraction) -> Fraction {
        Fraction {
            numerator: self.numerator * rhs.denominator + rhs.numerator * self.denominator,
            denominator: self.denominator * rhs.denominator,
        }
    }
}

fn main() {
    println!(
        "{}",
        Fraction { numerator: 5, denominator: 4 } + Fraction { numerator: 1, denominator: 2 }
    ); // 14/8
}

Documentation Comments

C# provides a mechanism to document the API for types using a comment syntax that contains XML text. The C# compiler produces an XML file that contains structured data representing the comments and the API signatures. Other tools can process that output to provide human-readable documentation in a different form. A simple example in C#:

/// <summary>
/// This is a document comment for <c>MyClass</c>.
/// </summary>
public class MyClass {}

In Rust doc comments provide the equivalent to C# documentation comments. Documentation comments in Rust use Markdown syntax. rustdoc is the documentation compiler for Rust code and is usually invoked through cargo doc, which compiles the comments into documentation. For example:

/// This is a doc comment for `MyStruct`.
struct MyStruct;

In the .NET SDK there is no equivalent to cargo doc, such as dotnet doc.

See also:

• How to write documentation
• Documentation tests

Memory Management

Like C# and .NET, Rust has memory-safety to avoid a whole class of bugs related to memory access, and which end up being the source of many security vulnerabilities in software. However, Rust can guarantee memory-safety at compile-time; there is no run-time (like the CLR) making checks. The one exception here is array bound checks that are done by the compiled code at run-time, be that the Rust compiler or the JIT compiler in .NET. Like C#, it is also possible to write unsafe code in Rust, and in fact, both languages even share the same keyword, literally unsafe, to mark functions and blocks of code where memory-safety is no longer guaranteed.

Rust has no garbage collector (GC). All memory management is entirely the responsibility of the developer. That said, safe Rust has rules around ownership that ensure memory is freed as soon as it's no longer in use (e.g. when leaving the scope of a block or a function). The compiler does a tremendous job, through (compile-time) static analysis, of helping manage that memory through ownership rules. If violated, the compiler rejects the code with a compilation error.

In .NET, there is no concept of ownership of memory beyond the GC roots (static fields, local variables on a thread's stack, CPU registers, handles, etc.). It is the GC that walks from the roots during a collection to detemine all memory in use by following references and purging the rest. When designing types and writing code, a .NET developer can remain oblivious to ownership, memory management and even how the garbage collector works for the most part, except when performance-sensitive code requires paying attention to the amount and rate at which objects are being allocated on the heap. In contrast, Rust's ownership rules require the developer to explicitly think and express ownership at all times and it impacts everything from the design of functions, types, data structures to how the code is written. On top of that, Rust has strict rules about how data is used such that it can identify at compile-time, data race conditions as well as corruption issues (requiring thread-safety) that could potentially occur at run-time. This section will only focus on memory management and ownership.

There can only be one owner of some memory, be that on the stack or heap, backing a structure at any given time in Rust. The compiler assigns lifetimes and tracks ownership. It is possible to pass or yield ownership, which is called moving in Rust. These ideas are briefly illustrated in the example Rust code below:

#![allow(dead_code, unused_variables)]

struct Point {
    x: i32,
    y: i32,
}

fn main() {
    let a = Point { x: 12, y: 34 }; // point owned by a
    let b = a;                      // b owns the point now
    println!("{}, {}", a.x, a.y);   // compiler error!
}

The first statement in main will allocate Point and that memory will be owned by a. In the second statement, the ownership is moved from a to b and a can no longer be used because it no longer owns anything or represents valid memory. The last statement that tries to print the fields of the point via a will fail compilation. Suppose main is fixed to read as follows:

fn main() {
    let a = Point { x: 12, y: 34 }; // point owned by a
    let b = a;                      // b owns the point now
    println!("{}, {}", b.x, b.y);   // ok, uses b
}   // point behind b is dropped

Note that when main exits, a and b will go out of scope. The memory behind b will be released by virtue of the stack returning to its state prior to main being called. In Rust, one says that the point behind b was dropped. However, note that since a yielded its ownership of the point to b, there is nothing to drop when a goes out of scope.

A struct in Rust can define code to execute when an instance is dropped by implementing the Drop trait.

The rough equivalent of dropping in C# would be a class finalizer, but while a finalizer is called automatically by the GC at some future point, dropping in Rust is always instantaneous and deterministic; that is, it happens at the point the compiler has determined that an instance has no owner based on scopes and lifetimes. In .NET, the equivalent of Drop would be IDisposable and is implemented by types to release any unmanaged resources or memory they hold. Deterministic disposal is not enforced or guaranteed, but the using statement in C# is typically used to scope an instance of a disposable type such that it gets disposed determinstically, at the end of the using statement's block.

Rust has the notion of a global lifetime denoted by 'static, which is a reserved lifetime specifier. A very rough approximation in C# would be static read-only fields of types.

In C# and .NET, references are shared freely without much thought so the idea of a single owner and yielding/moving ownership may seem very limiting in Rust, but it is possible to have shared ownership in Rust using the smart pointer type Rc; it adds reference-counting. Each time the smart pointer is cloned, the reference count is incremented. When the clone drops, the reference count is decremented. The actual instance behind the smart pointer is dropped when the reference count reaches zero. These points are illustrated by the following examples that build on the previous:

#![allow(dead_code, unused_variables)]

use std::rc::Rc;

struct Point {
    x: i32,
    y: i32,
}

impl Drop for Point {
    fn drop(&mut self) {
        println!("Point dropped!");
    }
}

fn main() {
    let a = Rc::new(Point { x: 12, y: 34 });
    let b = Rc::clone(&a); // share with b
    println!("a = {}, {}", a.x, a.y); // okay to use a
    println!("b = {}, {}", b.x, b.y);
}

// prints:
// a = 12, 34
// b = 12, 34
// Point dropped!

Note that:

• Point implements the drop method of the Drop trait and prints a message when an instance of a Point is dropped.

• The point created in main is wrapped behind the smart pointer Rc and so the smart pointer owns the point and not a.

• b gets a clone of the smart pointer that effectively increments the reference count to 2. Unlike the earlier example, where a transferred its ownership of point to b, both a and b own their own distinct clones of the smart pointer, so it is okay to continue to use a and b.

• The compiler will have determined that a and b go out of scope at the end of main and therefore injected calls to drop each. The Drop implementation of Rc will decrement the reference count and also drop what it owns if the reference count has reached zero. When that happens, the Drop implementation of Point will print the message, “Point dropped!” The fact that the message is printed once demonstrates that only one point was created, shared and dropped.

Rc is not thread-safe. For shared ownership in a multi-threaded program, the Rust standard library offers Arc instead. The Rust language will prevent the use of Rc across threads.

In .NET, value types (like enum and struct in C#) live on the stack and reference types (interface, record class and class in C#) are heap-allocated. In Rust, the kind of type (basically enum or struct in Rust), does not determine where the backing memory will eventually live. By default, it is always on the stack, but just the way .NET and C# have a notion of boxing value types, which copies them to the heap, the way to allocate a type on the heap is to box it using Box:

let stack_point = Point { x: 12, y: 34 };
let heap_point = Box::new(Point { x: 12, y: 34 });

Like Rc and Arc, Box is a smart pointer, but unlike Rc and Arc, it exclusively owns the instance behind it. All of these smart pointers allocate an instance of their type argument T on the heap.

The new keyword in C# creates an instance of a type, and while members such as Box::new and Rc::new that you see in the examples may seem to have a similar purpose, new has no special designation in Rust. It's merely a coventional name that is meant to denote a factory. In fact they are called associated functions of the type, which is Rust's way of saying static methods.

Resource Management

Previous section on memory management explains the differences between .NET and Rust when it comes to GC, ownership and finalizers. It is highly recommended to read it.

This section is limited to providing an example of a fictional database connection involving a SQL connection to be properly closed/disposed/dropped

{
    using var db1 = new DatabaseConnection("Server=A;Database=DB1");
    using var db2 = new DatabaseConnection("Server=A;Database=DB2");

    // ...code using "db1" and "db2"...
}   // "Dispose" of "db1" and "db2" called here; when their scope ends

public class DatabaseConnection : IDisposable
{
    readonly string connectionString;
    SqlConnection connection; //this implements IDisposable

    public DatabaseConnection(string connectionString) =>
        this.connectionString = connectionString;

    public void Dispose()
    {
        //Making sure to dispose the SqlConnection
        this.connection.Dispose();
        Console.WriteLine("Closing connection: {this.connectionString}");
    }
}

struct DatabaseConnection(&'static str);

impl DatabaseConnection {
    // ...functions for using the database connection...
}

impl Drop for DatabaseConnection {
    fn drop(&mut self) {
        // ...closing connection...
        self.close_connection();
        // ...printing a message...
        println!("Closing connection: {}", self.0)
    }
}

fn main() {
    let _db1 = DatabaseConnection("Server=A;Database=DB1");
    let _db2 = DatabaseConnection("Server=A;Database=DB2");
    // ...code for making use of the database connection...
} // "Dispose" of "db1" and "db2" called here; when their scope ends

In .NET, attempting to use an object after calling Dispose on it will typically cause ObjectDisposedException to be thrown at runtime. In Rust, the compiler ensures at compile-time that this cannot happen.

Threading

The Rust standard library supports threading, synchronisation and concurrency. Also the language itself and the standard library do have basic support for the concepts, a lot of additional functionality is provided by crates and will not be covered in this document.

The following lists approximate mapping of threading types and methods in .NET to Rust:

Launching a thread and waiting for it to finish works the same way in C#/.NET and Rust. Below is a simple C# program that creates a thread (where the thread prints some text to standard output) and then waits for it to end:

using System;
using System.Threading;

var thread = new Thread(() => Console.WriteLine("Hello from a thread!"));
thread.Start();
thread.Join(); // wait for thread to finish

The same code in Rust would be as follows:

use std::thread;

fn main() {
    let thread = thread::spawn(|| println!("Hello from a thread!"));
    thread.join().unwrap(); // wait for thread to finish
}

Creating and initializing a thread object and starting a thread are two different actions in .NET whereas in Rust both happen at the same time with thread::spawn.

In .NET, it's possible to send data as an argument to a thread:

#nullable enable

using System;
using System.Text;
using System.Threading;

var t = new Thread(obj =>
{
    var data = (StringBuilder)obj!;
    data.Append(" World!");
});

var data = new StringBuilder("Hello");
t.Start(data);
t.Join();

Console.WriteLine($"Phrase: {data}");

However, a more modern or terser version would use closures:

using System;
using System.Text;
using System.Threading;

var data = new StringBuilder("Hello");

var t = new Thread(obj => data.Append(" World!"));

t.Start();
t.Join();

Console.WriteLine($"Phrase: {data}");

In Rust, there is no variation of thread::spawn that does the same. Instead, the data is passed to the thread via a closure:

use std::thread;

fn main() {
    let data = String::from("Hello");
    let handle = thread::spawn(move || {
        let mut data = data;
        data.push_str(" World!");
        data
    });
    println!("Phrase: {}", handle.join().unwrap());
}

A few things to note:

• The move keyword is required to move or pass the ownership of data to the closure for the thread. Once this is done, it's no longer legal to continue to use the data variable of main, in main. If that is needed, data must be copied or cloned (depending on what the type of the value supports).

• Rust thread can return values, like tasks in C#, which becomes the return value of the join method.

• It is possible to also pass data to the C# thread via a closure, like the Rust example, but the C# version does not need to worry about ownership since the memory behind the data will be reclaimed by the GC once no one is referencing it anymore.

Synchronization

When data is shared between threads, one needs to synchronize read-write access to the data in order to avoid corruption. The C# offers the lock keyword as a synchronization primitive (which desugars to exception-safe use of Monitor from .NET):

using System;
using System.Threading;

var dataLock = new object();
var data = 0;
var threads = new List<Thread>();

for (var i = 0; i < 10; i++)
{
    var thread = new Thread(() =>
    {
        for (var j = 0; j < 1000; j++)
        {
            lock (dataLock)
                data++;
        }
    });
    threads.Add(thread);
    thread.Start();
}

foreach (var thread in threads)
    thread.Join();

Console.WriteLine(data);

In Rust, one must make explicit use of concurrency structures like Mutex:

use std::thread;
use std::sync::{Arc, Mutex};

fn main() {
    let data = Arc::new(Mutex::new(0)); // (1)

    let mut threads = vec![];
    for _ in 0..10 {
        let data = Arc::clone(&data); // (2)
        let thread = thread::spawn(move || { // (3)
            for _ in 0..1000 {
                let mut data = data.lock().unwrap();
                *data += 1; // (4)
            }
        });
        threads.push(thread);
    }

    for thread in threads {
        thread.join().unwrap();
    }

    println!("{}", data.lock().unwrap());
}

A few things to note:

• Since the ownership of the Mutex instance and in turn the data it guards will be shared by multiple threads, it is wrapped in an Arc (1). Arc provides atomic reference counting, which increments each time it is cloned (2) and decrements each time it is dropped. When the count reaches zero, the mutex and in turn the data it guards are dropped. This is discussed in more detail in Memory Management).

• The closure instance for each thread receives ownership (3) of the cloned reference (2).

• The pointer-like code that is *data += 1 (4), is not some unsafe pointer access even if it looks like it. It's updating the data wrapped in the mutex guard.

Unlike the C# version, where one can render it thread-unsafe by commenting out the lock statement, the Rust version will refuse to compile if it's changed in any way (e.g. by commenting out parts) that renders it thread-unsafe. This demonstrates that writing thread-safe code is the developer's responsibility in C# and .NET by careful use of synchronized structures whereas in Rust, one can rely on the compiler.

The compiler is able to help because data structures in Rust are marked by special traits (see Interfaces): Sync and Send. Sync indicates that references to a type's instances are safe to share between threads. Send indicates it's safe to instances of a type across thread boundaries. For more information, see the “Fearless Concurrency” chapter of the Rust book.

Producer-Consumer

The producer-consumer pattern is very common to distribute work between threads where data is passed from producing threads to consuming threads without the need for sharing or locking. .NET has very rich support for this, but at the most basic level, System.Collections.Concurrent provides the BlockingCollection as shown in the next example in C#:

using System;
using System.Threading;
using System.Collections.Concurrent;

var messages = new BlockingCollection<string>();
var producer = new Thread(() =>
{
    for (var n = 1; i < 10; i++)
        messages.Add($"Message #{n}");
    messages.CompleteAdding();
});

producer.Start();

// main thread is the consumer here
foreach (var message in messages.GetConsumingEnumerable())
    Console.WriteLine(message);

producer.Join();

The same can be done in Rust using channels. The standard library primarily provides mpsc::channel, which is a channel that supports multiple producers and a single consumer. A rough translation of the above C# example in Rust would look as follows:

use std::thread;
use std::sync::mpsc;
use std::time::Duration;

fn main() {
    let (tx, rx) = mpsc::channel();

    let producer = thread::spawn(move || {
        for n in 1..10 {
            tx.send(format!("Message #{}", n)).unwrap();
        }
    });

    // main thread is the consumer here
    for received in rx {
        println!("{}", received);
    }

    producer.join().unwrap();
}

Like channels in Rust, .NET also offers channels in the System.Threading.Channels namespace, but it is primarily designed to be used with tasks and asynchronous programming using async and await. The equivalent of the async-friendly channels in the Rust space is offered by the Tokio runtime.

Testing

Test organization

.NET solutions use separate projects to host test code, irrespective of the test framework being used (xUnit, NUnit, MSTest, etc.) and the type of tests (unit or integration) being wirtten. The test code therefore lives in a separate assembly than the application or library code being tested. In Rust, it is a lot more conventional for unit tests to be found in a separate test sub-module (conventionally) named tests, but which is placed in same source file as the application or library module code that is the subject of the tests. This has two benefits:

• The code/module and its unit tests live side-by-side.

• There is no need for a workaround like [InternalsVisibleTo] that exists in .NET because the tests have access to internals by virtual of being a sub-module.

The test sub-module is annotated with the #[cfg(test)] attribute, which has the effect that the entire module is (conditionally) compiled and run only when the cargo test command is issued.

Within the test sub-modules, test functions are annotated with the #[test] attribute.

Integration tests are usually in a directory called tests that sits adjacent to the src directory with the unit tests and source. cargo test compiles each file in that directory as a separate crate and run all the methods annotated with #[test] attribute. Since it is understood that integration tests in the tests directory, there is no need to mark the modules in there with the #[cfg(test)] attribute.

See also:

• Test Organization

Running tests

As simple as it can be, the equivalent of dotnet test in Rust is cargo test.

The default behavior of cargo test is to run all the tests in parallel, but this can be configured to run consecutively using only a single thread:

cargo test -- --test-threads=1

For more information, see "Running Tests in Parallel or Consecutively".

Output in Tests

For very complex integration or end-to-end test, .NET developers sometimes log what's happening during a test. The actual way they do this varies with each test framework. For example, in NUnit, this is as simple as using Console.WriteLine, but in XUnit, one uses ITestOutputHelper. In Rust, it's similar to NUnit; that is, one simply writes to the standard output using println!. The output captured during the running of the tests is not shown by default unless cargo test is run the with --show-output option:

cargo test --show-output

For more information, see "Showing Function Output".

Assertions

.NET users have multiple ways to assert, depending on the framework being used. For example, an assertion xUnit.net might look like:

[Fact]
public void Something_Is_The_Right_Length()
{
    var value = "something";
    Assert.Equal(9, value.Length);
}

Rust does not require a separate framework or crate. The standard library comes with built-in macros that are good enough for most assertions in tests:

• assert!
• assert_eq!
• assert_ne!

Below is an example of assert_eq in action:

#[test]
fn something_is_the_right_length() {
    let value = "something";
    assert_eq!(9, value.len());
}

The standard library does not offer anything in the direction of data-driven tests, such as [Theory] in xUnit.net.

Mocking

When writing tests for a .NET application or library, there exist several frameworks, like Moq and NSubstitute, to mock out the dependencies of types. There are similar crates for Rust too, like mockall, that can help with mocking. However, it is also possible to use conditional compilation by making use of the cfg attribute as a simple means to mocking without needing to rely on external crates or frameworks. The cfg attribute conditionally includes the code it annotates based on a configuration symbol, such as test for testing. This is not very different to using DEBUG to conditionally compile code specifically for debug builds. One downside of this approach is that you can only have one implementation for all tests of the module.

When specified, the #[cfg(test)] attribute tells Rust to compile and run the code only when executing the cargo test command, which behind-the-scenes executes the compiler with rustc --test. The opposite is true for the #[cfg(not(test))] attribute; it includes the annotated only when testing with cargo test.

The example below shows mocking of a stand-alone function var_os from the standard that reads and returns the value of an environment variable. It conditionally imports a mocked version of the var_os function used by get_env. When built with cargo build or run with cargo run, the compiled binary will make use of std::env::var_os, but cargo test will instead import tests::var_os_mock as var_os, thus causing get_env to use the mocked version during testing:

// Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
// Licensed under the MIT license.

/// Utility function to read an environmentvariable and return its value If
/// defined. It fails/panics if the valus is not valid Unicode.
pub fn get_env(key: &str) -> Option<String> {
    #[cfg(not(test))]                 // for regular builds...
    use std::env::var_os;             // ...import from the standard library
    #[cfg(test)]                      // for test builds...
    use tests::var_os_mock as var_os; // ...import mock from test sub-module

    let val = var_os(key);
    val.map(|s| s.to_str()     // get string slice
                 .unwrap()     // panic if not valid Unicode
                 .to_owned())  // convert to "String"
}

#[cfg(test)]
mod tests {
    use std::ffi::*;
    use super::*;

    pub(crate) fn var_os_mock(key: &str) -> Option<OsString> {
        match key {
            "FOO" => Some("BAR".into()),
            _ => None
        }
    }

    #[test]
    fn get_env_when_var_undefined_returns_none() {
        assert_eq!(None, get_env("???"));
    }

    #[test]
    fn get_env_when_var_defined_returns_some_value() {
        assert_eq!(Some("BAR".to_owned()), get_env("FOO"));
    }
}

Code coverage

There is sophisticated tooling for .NET when it comes to analyzing test code coverage. In Visual Studio, the tooling is built-in and integrated. In Visual Studio Code, plug-ins exist. .NET developers might be familiar with coverlet as well.

Rust is providing built-in code coverage implementations for collecting test code coverage.

There are also plug-ins available for Rust to help with code coverage analysis. It's not seamlessly integrated, but with some manual steps, developers can analyze their code in a visual way.

The combination of Coverage Gutters plug-in for Visual Studio Code and Tarpaulin allows visual analysis of the code coverage in Visual Studio Code. Coverage Gutters requires an LCOV file. Other tools besides Tarpaulin can be used to generate that file.

Once setup, run the following command:

cargo tarpaulin --ignore-tests --out Lcov

This generates an LCOV Code Coverage file. Once Coverage Gutters: Watch is enabled, it will be picked up by the Coverage Gutters plug-in, which will show in-line visual indicators about the line coverage in the source code editor.

Note: The location of the LCOV file is essential. If a workspace (see Project Structure) with multiple packages is present and a LCOV file is generated in the root using --workspace, that is the file that is being used - even if there is a file present directly in the root of the package. It is quicker to isolate to the particular package under test rather than generating the LCOV file in the root.

Benchmarking

Running benchmarks in Rust is done via cargo bench, a specific command for cargo which is executing all the methods annotated with the #[bench] attribute. This attribute is currently unstable and available only for the nightly channel.

.NET users can make use of BenchmarkDotNet library to benchmark methods and track their performance. The equivalent of BenchmarkDotNet is a crate named Criterion.

As per its documentation, Criterion collects and stores statistical information from run to run and can automatically detect performance regressions as well as measuring optimizations.

Using Criterion is possible to use the #[bench] attribute without moving to the nightly channel.

As in BenchmarkDotNet, it is also possible to integrate benchmark results with the GitHub Action for Continuous Benchmarking. Criterion, in fact, supports multiple output formats, amongst which there is also the bencher format, mimicking the nightly libtest benchmarks and compatible with the above mentioned action.

Logging and Tracing

.NET supports a number of logging APIs. For most cases, ILogger is a good default choice, since it works with a variety of built-in and third-party logging providers. In C#, a minimal example for structured logging could look like:

using Microsoft.Extensions.Logging;

using var loggerFactory = LoggerFactory.Create(builder => builder.AddConsole());
var logger = loggerFactory.CreateLogger<Program>();
logger.LogInformation("Hello {Day}.", "Thursday"); // Hello Thursday.

In Rust, a lightweight logging facade is provided by log. It has less features than ILogger, e.g. as it does not yet offer (stable) structured logging or logging scopes.

For something with more feature parity to .NET, Tokio offers tracing. tracing is a framework for instrumenting Rust applications to collect structured, event-based diagnostic information. tracing_subscriber can be used to implement and compose tracing subscribers. The same structured logging example from above with tracing and tracing_subscriber looks like:

fn main() {
    // install global default ("console") collector.
    tracing_subscriber::fmt().init();
    tracing::info!("Hello {Day}.", Day = "Thursday"); // Hello Thursday.
}

OpenTelemetry offers a collection of tools, APIs, and SDKs used to instrument, generate, collect, and export telemetry data based on the OpenTelemetry specification. At the time of writing, the OpenTelemetry Logging API is not yet stable and the Rust implementation does not yet support logging, but the tracing API is supported.

Conditional Compilation

Both .NET and Rust are providing the possibility for compiling specific code based on external conditions.

In .NET it is possible to use the some preprocessor directives in order to control conditional compilation

#if debug
    Console.WriteLine("Debug");
#else
    Console.WriteLine("Not debug");
#endif

In addition to predefined symbols, it is also possible to use the compiler option DefineConstants to define symbols that can be used with #if, #else, #elif and #endif to compile source files conditionally.

In Rust it is possible to use the cfg attribute, the cfg_attr attribute or the cfg macro to control conditional compilation

As per .NET, in addition to predefined symbols, it is also possible to use the compiler flag --cfg to arbitrarily set configuration options

The cfg attribute is requiring and evaluating a ConfigurationPredicate

use std::fmt::{Display, Formatter};

struct MyStruct;

// This implementation of Display is only included when the OS is unix but foo is not equal to bar
// You can compile an executable for this version, on linux, with 'rustc main.rs --cfg foo=\"baz\"'
#[cfg(all(unix, not(foo = "bar")))]
impl Display for MyStruct {
    fn fmt(&self, f: &mut Formatter<'_>) -> std::fmt::Result {
        f.write_str("Running without foo=bar configuration")
    }
}

// This function is only included when both unix and foo=bar are defined
// You can compile an executable for this version, on linux, with 'rustc main.rs --cfg foo=\"bar\"'
#[cfg(all(unix, foo = "bar"))]
impl Display for MyStruct {
    fn fmt(&self, f: &mut Formatter<'_>) -> std::fmt::Result {
        f.write_str("Running with foo=bar configuration")
    }
}

// This function is panicking when not compiled for unix
// You can compile an executable for this version, on windows, with 'rustc main.rs'
#[cfg(not(unix))]
impl Display for MyStruct {
    fn fmt(&self, _f: &mut Formatter<'_>) -> std::fmt::Result {
        panic!()
    }
}

fn main() {
    println!("{}", MyStruct);
}

The cfg_attr attribute conditionally includes attributes based on a configuration predicate.

#[cfg_attr(feature = "serialization_support", derive(Serialize, Deserialize))]
pub struct MaybeSerializableStruct;

// When the `serialization_support` feature flag is enabled, the above will expand to:
// #[derive(Serialize, Deserialize)]
// pub struct MaybeSerializableStruct;

The built-in cfg macro takes in a single configuration predicate and evaluates to the true literal when the predicate is true and the false literal when it is false.

if cfg!(unix) {
  println!("I'm running on a unix machine!");
}

See also:

• Conditional compilation

Features

Conditional compilation is also helpful when there is a need for providing optional dependencies. With cargo "features", a package defines a set of named features in the [features] table of Cargo.toml, and each feature can either be enabled or disabled. Features for the package being built can be enabled on the command-line with flags such as --features. Features for dependencies can be enabled in the dependency declaration in Cargo.toml.

See also:

• Features

Environment and Configuration

Accessing environment variables

.NET provides access to environment variables via the System.Environment.GetEnvironmentVariable method. This method retrieves the value of an environment variable at runtime.

using System;

const string name = "EXAMPLE_VARIABLE";

var value = Environment.GetEnvironmentVariable(name);
if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(value))
    Console.WriteLine($"Variable '{name}' not set.");
else
    Console.WriteLine($"Variable '{name}' set to '{value}'.");

Rust is providing the same functionality of accessing an environment variable at runtime via the var and var_os functions from the std::env module.

var function is returning a Result<String, VarError>, either returning the variable if set or returning an error if the variable is not set or it is not valid Unicode.

var_os has a different signature giving back an Option<OsString>, either returning some value if the variable is set, or returning None if the variable is not set. An OsString is not required to be valid Unicode.

use std::env;


fn main() {
    let key = "ExampleVariable";
    match env::var(key) {
        Ok(val) => println!("{key}: {val:?}"),
        Err(e) => println!("couldn't interpret {key}: {e}"),
    }
}

use std::env;

fn main() {
    let key = "ExampleVariable";
    match env::var_os(key) {
        Some(val) => println!("{key}: {val:?}"),
        None => println!("{key} not defined in the enviroment"),
    }
}

Rust is also providing the functionality of accessing an environment variable at compile time. The env! macro from std::env expands the value of the variable at compile time, returning a &'static str. If the variable is not set, an error is emitted.

use std::env;

fn main() {
    let example = env!("ExampleVariable");
    println!("{example}");
}

In .NET a compile time access to environment variables can be achieved, in a less straightforward way, via source generators.

Configuration

Configuration in .NET is possible with configuration providers. The framework is providing several provider implementations via Microsoft.Extensions.Configuration namespace and NuGet packages.

Configuration providers read configuration data from key-value pairs using different sources and provide a unified view of the configuration via the IConfiguration type.

using Microsoft.Extensions.Configuration;

class Example {
    static void Main()
    {
        IConfiguration configuration = new ConfigurationBuilder()
            .AddEnvironmentVariables()
            .Build();

        var example = configuration.GetValue<string>("ExampleVar");

        Console.WriteLine(example);
    }
}

Other providers examples can be found in the official documentation Configurations provider in .NET.

A similar configuration experience in Rust is available via use of third-party crates such as figment or config.

See the following example making use of config crate:

use config::{Config, Environment};

fn main() {
    let builder = Config::builder().add_source(Environment::default());

    match builder.build() {
        Ok(config) => {
            match config.get_string("examplevar") {
                Ok(v) => println!("{v}"),
                Err(e) => println!("{e}")
            }
        },
        Err(_) => {
            // something went wrong
        }
    }
}

LINQ

This section discusses LINQ within the context and for the purpose of querying or transforming sequences (IEnumerable/IEnumerable<T>) and typically collections like lists, sets and dictionaries.

IEnumerable<T>

The equivalent of IEnumerable<T> in Rust is IntoIterator. Just as an implementation of IEnumerable<T>.GetEnumerator() returns a IEnumerator<T> in .NET, an implementation of IntoIterator::into_iter returns an Iterator. However, when it's time to iterate over the items of a container advertising iteration support through the said types, both languages offer syntactic sugar in the form of looping constructs for iteratables. In C#, there is foreach:

using System;
using System.Text;

var values = new[] { 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 };
var output = new StringBuilder();

foreach (var value in values)
{
    if (output.Length > 0)
        output.Append(", ");
    output.Append(value);
}

Console.Write(output); // Prints: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

In Rust, the equivalent is simply for:

use std::fmt::Write;

fn main() {
    let values = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5];
    let mut output = String::new();

    for value in values {
        if output.len() > 0 {
            output.push_str(", ");
        }
        // ! discard/ignore any write error
        _ = write!(output, "{value}");
    }

    println!("{output}");  // Prints: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
}

The for loop over an iterable essentially gets desuraged to the following:

use std::fmt::Write;

fn main() {
    let values = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5];
    let mut output = String::new();

    let mut iter = values.into_iter();      // get iterator
    while let Some(value) = iter.next() {   // loop as long as there are more items
        if output.len() > 0 {
            output.push_str(", ");
        }
        _ = write!(output, "{value}");
    }

    println!("{output}");
}

Rust's ownership and data race condition rules apply to all instances and data, and iteration is no exception. So while looping over an array might look straightforward and very similar to C#, one has to be mindful about ownership when needing to iterate the same collection/iterable more than once. The following example iteraters the list of integers twice, once to print their sum and another time to determine and print the maximum integer:

fn main() {
    let values = vec![1, 2, 3, 4, 5];

    // sum all values

    let mut sum = 0;
    for value in values {
        sum += value;
    }
    println!("sum = {sum}");

    // determine maximum value

    let mut max = None;
    for value in values {
        if let Some(some_max) = max { // if max is defined
            if value > some_max {     // and value is greater
                max = Some(value)     // then note that new max
            }
        } else {                      // max is undefined when iteration starts
            max = Some(value)         // so set it to the first value
        }
    }
    println!("max = {max:?}");
}

However, the code above is rejected by the compiler due to a subtle difference: values has been changed from an array to a Vec<int>, a vector, which is Rust's type for growable arrays (like List<T> in .NET). The first iteration of values ends up consuming each value as the integers are summed up. In other words, the ownership of each item in the vector passes to the iteration variable of the loop: value. Since value goes out of scope at the end of each iteration of the loop, the instance it owns is dropped. Had values been a vector of heap-allocated data, the heap memory backing each item would get freed as the loop moved to the next item. To fix the problem, one has to request iteration over shared references via &values in the for loop. As a result, value ends up being a shared reference to an item as opposed to taking its ownership.

Below is the updated version of the previous example that compiles. The fix is to simply replace values with &values in each of the for loops.

fn main() {
    let values = vec![1, 2, 3, 4, 5];

    // sum all values

    let mut sum = 0;
    for value in &values {
        sum += value;
    }
    println!("sum = {sum}");

    // determine maximum value

    let mut max = None;
    for value in &values {
        if let Some(some_max) = max { // if max is defined
            if value > some_max {     // and value is greater
                max = Some(value)     // then note that new max
            }
        } else {                      // max is undefined when iteration starts
            max = Some(value)         // so set it to the first value
        }
    }
    println!("max = {max:?}");
}

The ownership and dropping can be seen in action even with values being an array instead of a vector. Consider just the summing loop from the above example over an array of a structure that wraps an integer:

struct Int(i32);

impl Drop for Int {
    fn drop(&mut self) {
        println!("{} dropped", self.0)
    }
}

fn main() {
    let values = [Int(1), Int(2), Int(3), Int(4), Int(5)];
    let mut sum = 0;

    for value in values {
        sum += value.0;
    }

    println!("sum = {sum}");
}

Int implements Drop so that a message is printed when an instance get dropped. Running the above code will print:

value = Int(1)
Int(1) dropped
value = Int(2)
Int(2) dropped
value = Int(3)
Int(3) dropped
value = Int(4)
Int(4) dropped
value = Int(5)
Int(5) dropped
sum = 15

It's clear that each value is acquired and dropped while the loop is running. Once the loop is complete, the sum is printed. If values in the for loop is changed to &values instead, like this:

for value in &values {
    // ...
}

then the output of the program will change radically:

value = Int(1)
value = Int(2)
value = Int(3)
value = Int(4)
value = Int(5)
sum = 15
Int(1) dropped
Int(2) dropped
Int(3) dropped
Int(4) dropped
Int(5) dropped

This time, values are acquired but not dropped while looping because each item doesn't get owned by the interation loop's variable. The sum is printed ocne the loop is done. Finally, when the values array that still owns all the the Int instances goes out of scope at the end of main, its dropping in turn drops all the Int instances.

These examples demonstrate that while iterating collection types may seem to have a lot of parallels between Rust and C#, from the looping constructs to the iteration abstractions, there are still subtle differences with respect to ownership that can lead to the compiler rejecting the code in some instances.

See also:

• Iterator
• Iterating by reference

Operators

Operators in LINQ are implemented in the form of C# extension methods that can be chained together to form a set of operations, with the most common forming a query over some sort of data source. C# also offers a SQL-inspired query syntax with clauses like from, where, select, join and others that can serve as an alternative or a companion to method chaining. Many imperative loops can be re-written as much more expressive and composable queries in LINQ.

Rust does not offer anything like C#'s query syntax. It has methods, called adapters in Rust terms, over iterable types and therefore directly comparable to chaining of methods in C#. However, whlie rewriting an imperative loop as LINQ code in C# is often beneficial in expressivity, robustness and composability, there is a trade-off with performance. Compute-bound imperative loops usually run faster because they can be optimised by the JIT compiler and there are fewer virtual dispatches or indirect function invocations incurred. The surprising part in Rust is that there is no performance trade-off between choosing to use method chains on an abstraction like an iterator over writing an imperative loop by hand. It's therefore far more common to see the former in code.

The following table lists the most common LINQ methods and their approximate counterparts in Rust.

1. The Aggregate overload not accepting a seed value is equivalent to reduce, while the Aggregate overload accepting a seed value corresponds to fold.

2. collect in Rust generally works for any collectible type, which is defined as a type that can initialize itself from an iterator (see FromIterator). collect needs a target type, which the compiler sometimes has trouble inferring so the turbofish (::<>) is often used in conjunction with it, as in collect::<Vec<_>>(). This is why collect appears next to a number of LINQ extension methods that convert an enumerable/iterable source to some collection type instance.

The following example shows how similar transforming sequences in C# is to doing the same in Rust. First in C#:

var result =
    Enumerable.Range(0, 10)
              .Where(x => x % 2 == 0)
              .SelectMany(x => Enumerable.Range(0, x))
              .Aggregate(0, (acc, x) => acc + x);

Console.WriteLine(result); // 50

And in Rust:

let result = (0..10)
    .filter(|x| x % 2 == 0)
    .flat_map(|x| (0..x))
    .fold(0, |acc, x| acc + x);

println!("{result}"); // 50

Deferred execution (laziness)

Many operators in LINQ are designed to be lazy such that they only do work when absolutely required. This enables composition or chaining of several operations/methods without causing any side-effects. For example, a LINQ operator can return an IEnumerable<T> that is initialized, but does not produce, compute or materialize any items of T until iterated. The operator is said to have deferred execution semantics. If each T is computed as iteration reaches it (as opposed to when iteration begins) then the operator is said to stream the results.

Rust iterators have the same concept of laziness and streaming.

In both cases, this allows infinite sequences to be represented, where the underlying sequence is infinite, but the developer decides how the sequence should be terminated . The following example shows this in C#:

foreach (var x in InfiniteRange().Take(5))
    Console.Write($"{x} "); // Prints "0 1 2 3 4"

IEnumerable<int> InfiniteRange()
{
    for (var i = 0; ; ++i)
        yield return i;
}

Rust supports the same concept through infinite ranges:

// Generators and yield in Rust are unstable at the moment, so
// instead, this sample uses Range:
// https://doc.rust-lang.org/std/ops/struct.Range.html

for value in (0..).take(5) {
    print!("{value} "); // Prints "0 1 2 3 4"
}

Iterator Methods (yield)

C# has the yield keword that enables the developer to quickly write an iterator method. The return type of an iterator method can be an IEnumerable<T> or an IEnumerator<T>. The compiler then converts the body of the method into a concrete implementation of the return type, instead of the developer having to write a full-blown class each time. Coroutines, as they're called in Rust, are still considered an unstable feature at the time of this writing.

Meta Programming

Metaprogramming can be seen as a way of writing code that writes/generates other code.

Roslyn is providing a feature for metaprogramming in C#, available since .NET 5, and called Source Generators. Source generators can create new C# source files at build-time that are added to the user's compilation. Before Source Generators were introduced, Visual Studio has been providing a code generation tool via T4 Text Templates. An example on how T4 works is the following template or its concretization.

Rust is also providing a feature for metaprogramming: macros. There are declarative macros and procedural macros.

Declarative macros allow you to write control structures that take an expression, compare the resulting value of the expression to patterns, and then run the code associated with the matching pattern.

The following example is the definition of the println! macro that it is possible to call for printing some text println!("Some text")

macro_rules! println {
    () => {
        $crate::print!("\n")
    };
    ($($arg:tt)*) => {{
        $crate::io::_print($crate::format_args_nl!($($arg)*));
    }};
}

To learn more about writing declarative macros, refer to the Rust reference chapter macros by example or The Little Book of Rust Macros.

Procedural macros are different than declarative macros. Those accept some code as an input, operate on that code, and produce some code as an output.

Another technique used in C# for metaprogramming is reflection. Rust does not support reflection.

Function-like macros

Function-like macros are in the following form: function!(...)

The following code snippet defines a function-like macro named print_something, which is generating a print_it method for printing the "Something" string.

In the lib.rs:

extern crate proc_macro;
use proc_macro::TokenStream;

#[proc_macro]
pub fn print_something(_item: TokenStream) -> TokenStream {
    "fn print_it() { println!(\"Something\") }".parse().unwrap()
}

In the main.rs:

use replace_crate_name_here::print_something;
print_something!();

fn main() {
    print_it();
}

Derive macros

Derive macros can create new items given the token stream of a struct, enum, or union. An example of a derive macro is the #[derive(Clone)] one, which is generating the needed code for making the input struct/enum/union implement the Clone trait.

In order to understand how to define a custom derive macro, it is possible to read the rust reference for derive macros

Attribute macros

Attribute macros define new attributes which can be attached to rust items. While working with asynchronous code, if making use of Tokio, the first step will be to decorate the new asynchronous main with an attribute macro like the following example:

#[tokio::main]
async fn main() {
    println!("Hello world");
}

In order to understand how to define a custom derive macro, it is possible to read the rust reference for attribute macros

Asynchronous Programming

Both .NET and Rust support asynchronous programming models, which look similar to each other with respect to their usage. The following example shows, on a very high level, how async code looks like in C#:

async Task<string> PrintDelayed(string message, CancellationToken cancellationToken)
{
    await Task.Delay(TimeSpan.FromSeconds(1), cancellationToken);
    return $"Message: {message}";
}

Rust code is structured similarly. The following sample relies on async-std for the implementation of sleep:

use std::time::Duration;
use async_std::task::sleep;

async fn format_delayed(message: &str) -> String {
    sleep(Duration::from_secs(1)).await;
    format!("Message: {}", message)
}

1. The Rust async keyword transforms a block of code into a state machine that implements a trait called Future, similarly to how the C# compiler transforms async code into a state machine. In both languages, this allows for writing asynchronous code sequentially.

2. Note that for both Rust and C#, asynchronous methods/functions are prefixed with the async keyword, but the return types are different. Asynchronous methods in C# indicate the full and actual return type because it can vary. For example, it is common to see some methods return a Task<T> while others return a ValueTask<T>. In Rust, it is enough to specify the inner type String because it's always some future; that is, a type that implements the Future trait.

3. The await keywords are in different positions in C# and Rust. In C#, a Task is awaited by prefixing the expression with await. In Rust, suffixing the expression with the .await keyword allows for method chaining, even though await is not a method.

See also:

• Asynchronous programming in Rust

Executing tasks

From the following example the PrintDelayed method executes, even though it is not awaited:

var cancellationToken = CancellationToken.None;
PrintDelayed("message", cancellationToken); // Prints "message" after a second.
await Task.Delay(TimeSpan.FromSeconds(2), cancellationToken);

async Task PrintDelayed(string message, CancellationToken cancellationToken)
{
    await Task.Delay(TimeSpan.FromSeconds(1), cancellationToken);
    Console.WriteLine(message);
}

In Rust, the same function invocation does not print anything.

use async_std::task::sleep;
use std::time::Duration;

#[tokio::main] // used to support an asynchronous main method
async fn main() {
    print_delayed("message"); // Prints nothing.
    sleep(Duration::from_secs(2)).await;
}

async fn print_delayed(message: &str) {
    sleep(Duration::from_secs(1)).await;
    println!("{}", message);
}

This is because futures are lazy: they do nothing until they are run. The most common way to run a Future is to .await it. When .await is called on a Future, it will attempt to run it to completion. If the Future is blocked, it will yield control of the current thread. When more progress can be made, the Future will be picked up by the executor and will resume running, allowing the .await to resolve (see async/.await).

While awaiting a function works from within other async functions, main is not allowed to be async. This is a consequence of the fact that Rust itself does not provide a runtime for executing asynchronous code. Hence, there are libraries for executing asynchronous code, called async runtimes. Tokio is such an async runtime, and it is frequently used. tokio::main from the above example marks the async main function as entry point to be executed by a runtime, which is set up automatically when using the macro.

Task cancellation

The previous C# examples included passing a CancellationToken to asynchronous methods, as is considered best practice in .NET. CancellationTokens can be used to abort an asynchronous operation.

Because futures are inert in Rust (they make progress only when polled), cancellation works differently in Rust. When dropping a Future, the Future will make no further progress. It will also drop all instantiated values up to the point where the future is suspended due to some outstanding asynchronous operation. This is why most asynchronous functions in Rust don't take an argument to signal cancellation, and is why dropping a future is sometimes being referred to as cancellation.

tokio_util::sync::CancellationToken offers an equivalent to the .NET CancellationToken to signal and react to cancellation, for cases where implementing the Drop trait on a Future is unfeasible.

Executing multiple Tasks

In .NET, Task.WhenAny and Task.WhenAll are frequently used to handle the execution of multiple tasks.

Task.WhenAny completes as soon as any task completes. Tokio, for example, provides the tokio::select! macro as an alternative for Task.WhenAny, which means to wait on multiple concurrent branches.

var cancellationToken = CancellationToken.None;

var result =
    await Task.WhenAny(Delay(TimeSpan.FromSeconds(2), cancellationToken),
                       Delay(TimeSpan.FromSeconds(1), cancellationToken));

Console.WriteLine(result.Result); // Waited 1 second(s).

async Task<string> Delay(TimeSpan delay, CancellationToken cancellationToken)
{
    await Task.Delay(delay, cancellationToken);
    return $"Waited {delay.TotalSeconds} second(s).";
}

The same example for Rust:

use std::time::Duration;
use tokio::{select, time::sleep};

#[tokio::main]
async fn main() {
    let result = select! {
        result = delay(Duration::from_secs(2)) => result,
        result = delay(Duration::from_secs(1)) => result,
    };

    println!("{}", result); // Waited 1 second(s).
}

async fn delay(delay: Duration) -> String {
    sleep(delay).await;
    format!("Waited {} second(s).", delay.as_secs())
}

Again, there are crucial differences in semantics between the two examples. Most importantly, tokio::select! will cancel all remaining branches, while Task.WhenAny leaves it up to the user to cancel any in-flight tasks.

Similarly, Task.WhenAll can be replaced with tokio::join!.

Multiple consumers

In .NET a Task can be used across multiple consumers. All of them can await the task and get notified when the task is completed or failed. In Rust, the Future can not be cloned or copied, and awaiting will move the ownership. The futures::FutureExt::shared extension creates a cloneable handle to a Future, which then can be distributed across multiple consumers.

use futures::FutureExt;
use std::time::Duration;
use tokio::{select, time::sleep, signal};
use tokio_util::sync::CancellationToken;

#[tokio::main]
async fn main() {
    let token = CancellationToken::new();
    let child_token = token.child_token();

    let bg_operation = background_operation(child_token);

    let bg_operation_done = bg_operation.shared();
    let bg_operation_final = bg_operation_done.clone();

    select! {
        _ = bg_operation_done => {},
        _ = signal::ctrl_c() => {
            token.cancel();
        },
    }

    bg_operation_final.await;
}

async fn background_operation(cancellation_token: CancellationToken) {
    select! {
        _ = sleep(Duration::from_secs(2)) => println!("Background operation completed."),
        _ = cancellation_token.cancelled() => println!("Background operation cancelled."),
    }
}

Asynchronous iteration

While in .NET there are IAsyncEnumerable<T> and IAsyncEnumerator<T>, Rust does not yet have an API for asynchronous iteration in the standard library. To support asynchronous iteration, the Stream trait from futures offers a comparable set of functionality.

In C#, writing async iterators has comparable syntax to when writing synchronous iterators:

await foreach (int item in RangeAsync(10, 3).WithCancellation(CancellationToken.None))
    Console.Write(item + " "); // Prints "10 11 12".

async IAsyncEnumerable<int> RangeAsync(int start, int count)
{
    for (int i = 0; i < count; i++)
    {
        await Task.Delay(TimeSpan.FromSeconds(i));
        yield return start + i;
    }
}

In Rust, there are several types that implement the Stream trait, and hence can be used for creating streams, e.g. futures::channel::mpsc. For a syntax closer to C#, async-stream offers a set of macros that can be used to generate streams succinctly.

use async_stream::stream;
use futures_core::stream::Stream;
use futures_util::{pin_mut, stream::StreamExt};
use std::{
    io::{stdout, Write},
    time::Duration,
};
use tokio::time::sleep;

#[tokio::main]
async fn main() {
    let stream = range(10, 3);
    pin_mut!(stream); // needed for iteration
    while let Some(result) = stream.next().await {
        print!("{} ", result); // Prints "10 11 12".
        stdout().flush().unwrap();
    }
}

fn range(start: i32, count: i32) -> impl Stream<Item = i32> {
    stream! {
        for i in 0..count {
            sleep(Duration::from_secs(i as _)).await;
            yield start + i;
        }
    }
}

Project Structure

While there are conventions around structuring a project in .NET, they are less strict compared to the Rust project structure conventions. When creating a two-project solution using Visual Studio 2022 (a class library and an xUnit test project), it will create the following structure:

.
|   SampleClassLibrary.sln
+---SampleClassLibrary
|       Class1.cs
|       SampleClassLibrary.csproj
+---SampleTestProject
        SampleTestProject.csproj
        UnitTest1.cs
        Usings.cs

• Each project resides in a separate directory, with its own .csproj file.
• At the root of the repository is a .sln file.

Cargo uses the following conventions for the package layout to make it easy to dive into a new Cargo package:

.
+-- Cargo.lock
+-- Cargo.toml
+-- src/
|   +-- lib.rs
|   +-- main.rs
+-- benches/
|   +-- some-bench.rs
+-- examples/
|   +-- some-example.rs
+-- tests/
    +-- some-integration-test.rs

• Cargo.toml and Cargo.lock are stored in the root of the package.
• src/lib.rs is the default library file, and src/main.rs is the default executable file (see target auto-discovery).
• Benchmarks go in the benches directory, integration tests go in the tests directory (see testing, benchmarking).
• Examples go in the examples directory.
• There is no separate crate for unit tests, unit tests live in the same file as the code (see testing).

Managing large projects

For very large projects in Rust, Cargo offers workspaces to organize the project. A workspace can help manage multiple related packages that are developed in tandem. Some projects use virtual manifests, especially when there is no primary package.

Managing dependency versions

When managing larger projects in .NET, it may be appropriate to manage the versions of dependencies centrally, using strategies such as Central Package Management. Cargo introduced workspace inheritance to manage dependencies centrally.

Compilation and Building

.NET CLI

The equivalent of the .NET CLI (dotnet) in Rust is Cargo (cargo). Both tools are entry-point wrappers that simplify use of other low-level tools. For example, although you could invoke the C# compiler directly (csc) or MSBuild via dotnet msbuild, developers tend to use dotnet build to build their solution. Similarly in Rust, while you could use the Rust compiler (rustc) directly, using cargo build is generally far simpler.

Building

Building an executable in .NET using dotnet build restores pacakges, compiles the project sources into an assembly. The assembly contain the code in Intermediate Language (IL) and can typically be run on any platform supported by .NET and provided the .NET runtime is installed on the host. The assemblies coming from dependent packages are generally co-located with the project's output assembly. cargo build in Rust does the same, except the Rust compiler statically links (although there exist other linking options) all code into a single, platform-dependent, binary.

Developers use dotnet publish to prepare a .NET executable for distribution, either as a framework-dependent deployment (FDD) or self-contained deployment (SCD). In Rust, there is no equivalent to dotnet publish as the build output already contains a single, platform-dependent binary for each target.

When building a library in .NET using dotnet build, it will still generate an assembly containing the IL. In Rust, the build output is, again, a platform-dependent, compiled library for each library target.

See also:

• Crate

Dependencies

In .NET, the contents of a project file define the build options and dependencies. In Rust, when using Cargo, a Cargo.toml declares the dependencies for a package. A typical project file will look like:

<Project Sdk="Microsoft.NET.Sdk">

  <PropertyGroup>
    <OutputType>Exe</OutputType>
    <TargetFramework>net6.0</TargetFramework>
  </PropertyGroup>

  <ItemGroup>
    <PackageReference Include="morelinq" Version="3.3.2" />
  </ItemGroup>

</Project>

The equivalent Cargo.toml in Rust is defined as:

[package]
name = "hello_world"
version = "0.1.0"

[dependencies]
tokio = "1.0.0"

Cargo follows a convention that src/main.rs is the crate root of a binary crate with the same name as the package. Likewise, Cargo knows that if the package directory contains src/lib.rs, the package contains a library crate with the same name as the package.

Packages

NuGet is most commonly used to install packages, and various tools supported it. For example, adding a NuGet package reference with the .NET CLI will add the dependency to the project file:

dotnet add package morelinq

In Rust this works almost the same if using Cargo to add packages.

cargo add tokio

The most common package registry for .NET is nuget.org whereas Rust packages are usually shared via crates.io.

Static code analysis

Since .NET 5, the Roslyn analyzers come bundled with the .NET SDK and provide code quality as well as code-style analysis. The equivalent linting tool in Rust is Clippy.

Similarly to .NET, where the build fails if warnings are present by setting TreatWarningsAsErrors to true, Clippy can fail if the compiler or Clippy emits warnings (cargo clippy -- -D warnings).

There are further static checks to consider adding to a Rust CI pipeline:

• Run cargo doc to ensure that documentation is correct.
• Run cargo check --locked to enforce that the Cargo.lock file is up-to-date.