Rust’s pattern matching feels simple enough: match on enums, destructure tuples, handle Option and Result. I stuck with these basics for months because, well, they work. But there’s a whole world of pattern techniques I wasn’t using. Once I discovered what’s actually possible, I kicked myself for all the verbose code I’d written.
Here’s what advanced pattern matching can look like (don’t worry if you don’t understand it now):
It took me way too long to discover these techniques. This post is so you don’t have to. I’ll cover:
The basics (plus hidden details)
Advanced techniques that matter
Best practices I learned the hard way
Let’s start with the fundamentals.
Basic pattern matching
If you’re already comfortable with basic pattern matching, feel free to skim this section.
Matching literals, variables, and wildcards
... continue reading