Module result

Error handling with the Result type.

Result<T, E> is the type used for returning and propagating errors. It is an enum with the variants, Ok(T), representing success and containing a value, and Err(E), representing error and containing an error value.

enum Result<T, E> {
   Ok(T),
   Err(E),
}

Functions return Result whenever errors are expected and recoverable. In the std crate, Result is most prominently used for I/O.

A simple function returning Result might be defined and used like so:

#[derive(Debug)]
enum Version { Version1, Version2 }

fn parse_version(header: &[u8]) -> Result<Version, &'static str> {
    match header.get(0) {
        None => Err("invalid header length"),
        Some(&1) => Ok(Version::Version1),
        Some(&2) => Ok(Version::Version2),
        Some(_) => Err("invalid version"),
    }
}

let version = parse_version(&[1, 2, 3, 4]);
match version {
    Ok(v) => println!("working with version: {v:?}"),
    Err(e) => println!("error parsing header: {e:?}"),
}

Pattern matching on Results is clear and str