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## An Example Program Using Structs

To understand when we might want to use structs, let’s write a program that
calculates the area of a rectangle. We’ll start by using single variables, and
then refactor the program until we’re using structs instead.

Let’s make a new binary project with Cargo called *rectangles* that will take
the width and height of a rectangle specified in pixels and calculate the area
of the rectangle. Listing 5-8 shows a short program with one way of doing
exactly that in our project’s *src/main.rs*.

<span class="filename">Filename: src/main.rs</span>

```rust
{{#rustdoc_include ../listings/ch05-using-structs-to-structure-related-data/listing-05-08/src/main.rs:all}}
```

<span class="caption">Listing 5-8: Calculating the area of a rectangle
specified by separate width and height variables</span>

Now, run this program using `cargo run`:

```console
{{#include ../listings/ch05-using-structs-to-structure-related-data/listing-05-08/output.txt}}
```

This code succeeds in figuring out the area of the rectangle by calling the
`area` function with each dimension, but we can do more to make this code clear
and readable.

The issue with this code is evident in the signature of `area`:

```rust,ignore
{{#rustdoc_include ../listings/ch05-using-structs-to-structure-related-data/listing-05-08/src/main.rs:here}}
```

The `area` function is supposed to calculate the area of one rectangle, but the
function we wrote has two parameters, and it’s not clear anywhere in our
program that the parameters are related. It would be more readable and more
manageable to group width and height together. We’ve already discussed one way
we might do that in [“The Tuple Type”][the-tuple-type]<!-- ignore --> section
of Chapter 3: by using tuples.

### Refactoring with Tuples

Listing 5-9 shows another version of our program that uses tuples.

<span class="filename">Filename: src/main.rs</span>

```rust
{{#rustdoc_include ../listings/ch05-using-structs-to-structure-related-data/listing-05-09/src/main.rs}}
```

<span class="caption">Listing 5-9: Specifying the width and height of the
rectangle with a tuple</span>

In one way, this program is better. Tuples let us add a bit of structure, and
we’re now passing just one argument. But in another way, this version is less
clear: tuples don’t name their elements, so we have to index into the parts of
the tuple, making our calculation less obvious.

Mixing up the width and height wouldn’t matter for the area calculation, but if
we want to draw the rectangle on the screen, it would matter! We would have to
keep in mind that `width` is the tuple index `0` and `height` is the tuple
index `1`. This would be even harder for someone else to figure out and keep in
mind if they were to use our code. Because we haven’t conveyed the meaning of
our data in our code, it’s now easier to introduce errors.

### Refactoring with Structs: Adding More Meaning

We use structs to add meaning by labeling the data. We can transform the tuple
we’re using into a struct with a name for the whole as well as names for the
parts, as shown in Listing 5-10.

<span class="filename">Filename: src/main.rs</span>

```rust
{{#rustdoc_include ../listings/ch05-using-structs-to-structure-related-data/listing-05-10/src/main.rs}}
```

<span class="caption">Listing 5-10: Defining a `Rectangle` struct</span>

Here we’ve defined a struct and named it `Rectangle`. Inside the curly
brackets, we defined the fields as `width` and `height`, both of which have
type `u32`. Then in `main`, we created a particular instance of `Rectangle`
that has a width of 30 and a height of 50.

Our `area` function is now defined with one parameter, which we’ve named
`rectangle`, whose type is an immutable borrow of a struct `Rectangle`
instance. As mentioned in Chapter 4, we want to borrow the struct rather than
take ownership of it. This way, `main` retains its ownership and can continue
using `rect1`, which is the reason we use the `&` in the function signature and
where we call the function.

The `area` function accesses the `width` and `height` fields of the `Rectangle`
instance (note that accessing fields of a borrowed struct instance does not
move the field values, which is why you often see borrows of structs). Our
function signature for `area` now says exactly what we mean: calculate the area
of `Rectangle`, using its `width` and `height` fields. This conveys that the
width and height are related to each other, and it gives descriptive names to
the values rather than using the tuple index values of `0` and `1`. This is a
win for clarity.

### Adding Useful Functionality with Derived Traits

It’d be useful to be able to print an instance of `Rectangle` while we’re
debugging our program and see the values for all its fields. Listing 5-11 tries
using the [`println!` macro][println]<!-- ignore --> as we have used in
previous chapters. This won’t work, however.

<span class="filename">Filename: src/main.rs</span>

```rust,ignore,does_not_compile
{{#rustdoc_include ../listings/ch05-using-structs-to-structure-related-data/listing-05-11/src/main.rs}}
```

<span class="caption">Listing 5-11: Attempting to print a `Rectangle`
instance</span>

When we compile this code, we get an error with this core message:

```text
{{#include ../listings/ch05-using-structs-to-structure-related-data/listing-05-11/output.txt:3}}
```

The `println!` macro can do many kinds of formatting, and by default, the curly
brackets tell `println!` to use formatting known as `Display`: output intended
for direct end user consumption. The primitive types we’ve seen so far
implement `Display` by default, because there’s only one way you’d want to show
a `1` or any other primitive type to a user. But with structs, the way
`println!` should format the output is less clear because there are more
display possibilities: Do you want commas or not? Do you want to print the
curly brackets? Should all the fields be shown? Due to this ambiguity, Rust
doesn’t try to guess what we want, and structs don’t have a provided
implementation of `Display` to use with `println!` and the `{}` placeholder.

If we continue reading the errors, we’ll find this helpful note:

```text
{{#include ../listings/ch05-using-structs-to-structure-related-data/listing-05-11/output.txt:9:10}}
```

Let’s try it! The `println!` macro call will now look like `println!("rect1 is
{:?}", rect1);`. Putting the specifier `:?` inside the curly brackets tells
`println!` we want to use an output format called `Debug`. The `Debug` trait
enables us to print our struct in a way that is useful for developers so we can
see its value while we’re debugging our code.

Compile the code with this change. Drat! We still get an error:

```text
{{#include ../listings/ch05-using-structs-to-structure-related-data/output-only-01-debug/output.txt:3}}
```

But again, the compiler gives us a helpful note:

```text
{{#include ../listings/ch05-using-structs-to-structure-related-data/output-only-01-debug/output.txt:9:10}}
```

Rust *does* include functionality to print out debugging information, but we
have to explicitly opt in to make that functionality available for our struct.
To do that, we add the outer attribute `#[derive(Debug)]` just before the
struct definition, as shown in Listing 5-12.

<span class="filename">Filename: src/main.rs</span>

```rust
{{#rustdoc_include ../listings/ch05-using-structs-to-structure-related-data/listing-05-12/src/main.rs}}
```

<span class="caption">Listing 5-12: Adding the attribute to derive the `Debug`
trait and printing the `Rectangle` instance using debug formatting</span>

Now when we run the program, we won’t get any errors, and we’ll see the
following output:

```console
{{#include ../listings/ch05-using-structs-to-structure-related-data/listing-05-12/output.txt}}
```

Nice! It’s not the prettiest output, but it shows the values of all the fields
for this instance, which would definitely help during debugging. When we have
larger structs, it’s useful to have output that’s a bit easier to read; in
those cases, we can use `{:#?}` instead of `{:?}` in the `println!` string.
In this example, using the `{:#?}` style will output:

```console
{{#include ../listings/ch05-using-structs-to-structure-related-data/output-only-02-pretty-debug/output.txt}}
```

Another way to print out a value using the `Debug` format is to use the [`dbg!`
macro][dbg]<!-- ignore -->, which takes ownership of an expression (as opposed
to `println!` that takes a reference), prints the file and line number of where
that `dbg!` macro call occurs in your code along with the resulting value of
that expression, and returns ownership of the value.

> Note: Calling the `dbg!` macro prints to the standard error console stream
> (`stderr`), as opposed to `println!` which prints to the standard output
> console stream (`stdout`). We’ll talk more about `stderr` and `stdout` in the
> “[“Writing Error Messages to Standard Error Instead of Standard
> Output” section in Chapter 12][err]<!-- ignore -->.

Here’s an example where we’re interested in the value that gets assigned to the
`width` field, as well as the value of the whole struct in `rect1`:

```rust
{{#rustdoc_include ../listings/ch05-using-structs-to-structure-related-data/no-listing-05-dbg-macro/src/main.rs}}
```

We can put `dbg!` around the expression `30 * scale` and, because `dbg!`
returns ownership of the expression’s value, the `width` field will get the
same value as if we didn’t have the `dbg!` call there. We don’t want `dbg!` to
take ownership of `rect1`, so we use a reference to `rect1` in the next call.
Here’s what the output of this example looks like:

```console
{{#include ../listings/ch05-using-structs-to-structure-related-data/no-listing-05-dbg-macro/output.txt}}
```

We can see the first bit of output came from *src/main.rs* line 10, where we’re
debugging the expression `30 * scale`, and its resulting value is 60 (the
`Debug` formatting implemented for integers is to print only their value). The
`dbg!` call on line 14 of *src/main.rs* outputs the value of `&rect1`, which is
the `Rectangle` struct. This output uses the pretty `Debug` formatting of the
`Rectangle` type. The `dbg!` macro can be really helpful when you’re trying to
figure out what your code is doing!

In addition to the `Debug` trait, Rust has provided a number of traits for us
to use with the `derive` attribute that can add useful behavior to our custom
types. Those traits and their behaviors are listed in [Appendix C][app-c]<!--
ignore -->. We’ll cover how to implement these traits with custom behavior as
well as how to create your own traits in Chapter 10. There are also many
attributes other than `derive`; for more information, see [the “Attributes”
section of the Rust Reference][attributes].

Our `area` function is very specific: it only computes the area of rectangles.
It would be helpful to tie this behavior more closely to our `Rectangle`
struct, because it won’t work with any other type. Let’s look at how we can
continue to refactor this code by turning the `area` function into an `area`
*method* defined on our `Rectangle` type.

[the-tuple-type]: ch03-02-data-types.html#the-tuple-type
[app-c]: appendix-03-derivable-traits.md
[println]: ../std/macro.println.html
[dbg]: ../std/macro.dbg.html
[err]: ch12-06-writing-to-stderr-instead-of-stdout.html
[attributes]: ../reference/attributes.html