Crate prelude

import prelude::* so you can be ready to code!

Traits

Not having common traits imported is one of the most annoying gotchas in rust when coming from other languages. When you are used to the language, you expect the methods you are used to to always work... not so. Using Vec::from_iter is extremely common, but you must first import the FromIterator trait.

The following are the traits that are implemented and why: - std::ascii::AsciiExt: adds the to_ascii_uppercase onto &str types. - std::fmt::Debug: allows you to define Debug manually. - std::fmt::Write as FmtWrite: adds write_str onto byte buffers (such as String). Renamed FmtWrite to avoid conflict with std::io::Write - std::io::Read: allows you to use file.read() - std::io::Seek: allows you to use file.seek() - std::io::Write as IoWrite: allows you to use file.write() and file.write_all(). Renamed IoWrite to avoid conflict with std::fmt::Write - std::ops::{Deref, DerefMut}: allows deref through *v and also enables Deref coercions - std::str::FromStr: allows you to use type::from_str constructor for several types. This is what is implicitly called with str::parse<_>()

structs

These are extremely commonly used types and it is annoying to have to reimport them all the time.

• std::collections::{BTreeMap, HashMap, HashSet}: ordered-dict, dict and set
• std::ffi::OsString: os agnostic (non unicode) string type std::path::PathBuf uses this.
• std::fs::File: for opening files.
  • File::open to open a file for reading
  • File::write to open a file for writing
• std::fs::OpenOptions for more file opening options
• std::fs::ReadDir: to iterate over the entries in a directory.
• std::path::{Path, PathBuf}: specifies an os path.
• std::rc::Rc: reference counted pointer
• std::sync::Arc: atomically reference counted pointer
• std::sync::Mutex: mutual exclusion primitive for threading.
• std::sync::atomic::{AtomicBool, AtomicIsize, AtomicUsize}: basic atomic types. Good for unique ids and lots of other use cases.
• std::sync::atomic::Ordering: necessary for performing operations on atomic types. For incrementing a counter use val.fetch_add(1, Ordering::SeqCst).
• std::sync::atomic::ATOMIC_USIZE_INIT: initialized AtomicUsize of 0. Use with static COUNTER: AtomicUsize = ATOMIC_USIZE_INIT;
• std::time::Duration: an amount of time, used for std::thread::sleep.

functions

• std::mem::{size_of, size_of_val}: get the size of a type. This is safe and common enough that it should be always available.
• std::thread::sleep: put the thread to sleep for a Duration.
• std::thread::spawn: spawn a function in a new thread. In rust this is memory safe, so it is nice to have it always available.

Structs

Arc	A thread-safe reference-counting pointer. 'Arc' stands for 'Atomically Reference Counted'.
AtomicBool	A boolean type which can be safely shared between threads.
AtomicIsize	An integer type which can be safely shared between threads.
AtomicUsize	An integer type which can be safely shared between threads.
BTreeMap	A map based on a B-Tree.
Duration	A Duration type to represent a span of time, typically used for system timeouts.
File	A reference to an open file on the filesystem.
HashMap	A hash map implemented with linear probing and Robin Hood bucket stealing.
HashSet	A hash set implemented as a HashMap where the value is ().
Mutex	A mutual exclusion primitive useful for protecting shared data
OpenOptions	Options and flags which can be used to configure how a file is opened.
OsString	A type that can represent owned, mutable platform-native strings, but is cheaply inter-convertible with Rust strings.
Path	A slice of a path (akin to str).
PathBuf	An owned, mutable path (akin to String).
Rc	A single-threaded reference-counting pointer. 'Rc' stands for 'Reference Counted'.
ReadDir	Iterator over the entries in a directory.

Enums

Ordering	Atomic memory orderings
SeekFrom	Enumeration of possible methods to seek within an I/O object.

Constants

ATOMIC_USIZE_INIT

An atomic integer initialized to 0.

Traits

AsciiExt	Extension methods for ASCII-subset only operations.
Debug	Format trait for the ? character.
Deref	Used for immutable dereferencing operations, like *v.
DerefMut	Used for mutable dereferencing operations, like in *v = 1;.
FmtWrite	A collection of methods that are required to format a message into a stream.
FromIterator	Conversion from an Iterator.
FromStr	A trait to abstract the idea of creating a new instance of a type from a string.
IoWrite	A trait for objects which are byte-oriented sinks.
Read	The Read trait allows for reading bytes from a source.
Seek	The Seek trait provides a cursor which can be moved within a stream of bytes.

Functions

size_of	Returns the size of a type in bytes.
size_of_val	Returns the size of the pointed-to value in bytes.
sleep	Puts the current thread to sleep for the specified amount of time.
spawn	Spawns a new thread, returning a JoinHandle for it.