let-else

🛈 stable since: rust 1.65

🛈 you can target specific edition by compiling like this rustc --edition=2021 main.rs

With let-else, a refutable pattern can match and bind variables in the surrounding scope like a normal let, or else diverge (e.g. break, return, panic!) when the pattern doesn't match.

use std::str::FromStr;

fn get_count_item(s: &str) -> (u64, &str) {
    let mut it = s.split(' ');
    let (Some(count_str), Some(item)) = (it.next(), it.next()) else {
        panic!("Can't segment count item pair: '{s}'");
    };
    let Ok(count) = u64::from_str(count_str) else {
        panic!("Can't parse integer: '{count_str}'");
    };
    (count, item)
}

fn main() {
    assert_eq!(get_count_item("3 chairs"), (3, "chairs"));
}

The scope of name bindings is the main thing that makes this different from match or if let-else expressions. You could previously approximate these patterns with an unfortunate bit of repetition and an outer let:


#![allow(unused)]
fn main() {
use std::str::FromStr;

fn get_count_item(s: &str) -> (u64, &str) {
    let mut it = s.split(' ');
    let (count_str, item) = match (it.next(), it.next()) {
        (Some(count_str), Some(item)) => (count_str, item),
        _ => panic!("Can't segment count item pair: '{s}'"),
    };
    let count = if let Ok(count) = u64::from_str(count_str) {
        count
    } else {
        panic!("Can't parse integer: '{count_str}'");
    };
    (count, item)
}

assert_eq!(get_count_item("3 chairs"), (3, "chairs"));
}

See also:

option, match, if let and the let-else RFC.