Installation - Rust Guide

The rustup installer and version management tool is the best way to download, install, and maintain the rust programming environment. Using the rustup command after installation will help you check for updates and update your Rust environment when necessary.

Depending on your operating system, you can install rustup by following the instructions below:

Linux or macOS

Windows

Enter the following command in terminal:

curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 https://sh.rustup.rs -sSf | sh

We recommend working with the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) to install Rust on Windows. Please follow the instructions from Microsoft.

Once you have WSL installed, open a WSL terminal and enter the following command:

curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 https://sh.rustup.rs -sSf | sh

Update existing Rust environment¶

You can run:

rustc --version

to both check if you already have Rust installed, and if so, which version. If you don’t have it installed, go above and follow the instructions to install it. If you already have a Rust environment installed, then you can update the version by doing:

rustup update

Rustlings¶

Rustlings is a collection of small exercises designed to help you get familiar with reading and writing Rust code. Throughout this guide, you’ll find references to specific Rustlings exercises that complement the topics being discussed.

To install Rustlings, make sure you have Rust installed (see above), then run:

cargo install rustlings

Once installed, initialize Rustlings in a directory of your choice (make sure it’s not in any of your course homework or project folders):

rustlings init

This will create a rustlings directory with all the exercises.

To start rustlings, simply enter the following command within the rustlings folder:

rustlings

Practicing Specific Rustlings Exercises

As you read the rust guide, you will find references to individual rustlings practice exercises, and they are not in the original order of the rustlings exercises. If you’d like to run individual practice problems, first start rustlings:

rustlings

And you can then hit the l key to list all the rustlings exercises and choose the relevant exercise.

Each exercise refers to a specific Rust (.rs) file within the rustlings folder. Navigate to that specific Rust file and edit it, given the instructions and the compiler message.

When you save the file, rustlings will automatically compile and run the file and check the output against the expected output. If your code is correct, it will respond with a success message. If not, the compiler error or test result is provided to you, and you can fix your code to complete the exercise gradually.

It is recommended that you open the rustlings folder in VSCode and run the rustlings command within a terminal session in VSCode. Any references to Rust files within the VSCode terminal can be visited by Ctrl-clicking (or Cmd-clicking on a Mac), making navigation and completing the rustlings exercises that much smoother.

For more information, as well as a live demo of the rustlings process, visit the Rustlings Website.