Rust Control Flow 101: How ‘if’, ‘match’, and ‘loop’ Shape Your Code

In this article, we’ll explore Rust control flow structures like if, match, and loops. We’ll also learn how to write efficient Rust code with practical examples and tips.

I found control flow statements such as if, match, and loop to offer a much better developer experience compared to other programming languages due to their flexibility. Almost all of them can be written as either expressions or statements. We will discuss this shortly. Unlike some programming languages, Rust doesn’t support do-while, switch, or traditional C-like for loops. However, there are easier ways to achieve the same functionality using Rust’s control flow semantics.

if/else

We use an if statement when we want to perform an action if something we expect is true. This is a vague statement, so let me break it down in terms of implementation.

if <condition> {
    // do some task
}

A normal if statement looks like the one above. The <condition> is a placeholder for a value or an expression that evaluates to a bool value. If this bool value is true, then the code inside {} will be executed. It’s as simple as that.