rust/src/doc/trpl/structs.md

% Structs

Structs are a way of creating more complex data types. For example, if we were doing calculations involving coordinates in 2D space, we would need both an x and a y value:

let origin_x = 0;
let origin_y = 0;

A struct lets us combine these two into a single, unified datatype:

struct Point {
    x: i32,
    y: i32,
}

fn main() {
    let origin = Point { x: 0, y: 0 }; // origin: Point

    println!("The origin is at ({}, {})", origin.x, origin.y);
}

There’s a lot going on here, so let’s break it down. We declare a struct with the struct keyword, and then with a name. By convention, structs begin with a capital letter and are camel cased: PointInSpace, not Point_In_Space.

We can create an instance of our struct via let, as usual, but we use a key: value style syntax to set each field. The order doesn’t need to be the same as in the original declaration.

Finally, because fields have names, we can access the field through dot notation: origin.x.

The values in structs are immutable by default, like other bindings in Rust. Use mut to make them mutable:

struct Point {
    x: i32,
    y: i32,
}

fn main() {
    let mut point = Point { x: 0, y: 0 };

    point.x = 5;

    println!("The point is at ({}, {})", point.x, point.y);
}

This will print The point is at (5, 0).

Rust does not support field mutability at the language level, so you cannot write something like this:

struct Point {
    mut x: i32,
    y: i32,
}

Mutability is a property of the binding, not of the structure itself. If you’re used to field-level mutability, this may seem strange at first, but it significantly simplifies things. It even lets you make things mutable for a short time only:

struct Point {
    x: i32,
    y: i32,
}

fn main() {
    let mut point = Point { x: 0, y: 0 };

    point.x = 5;

    let point = point; // this new binding can’t change now

    point.y = 6; // this causes an error
}

Update syntax

A struct can include .. to indicate that you want to use a copy of some other struct for some of the values. For example:

struct Point3d {
    x: i32,
    y: i32,
    z: i32,
}

let mut point = Point3d { x: 0, y: 0, z: 0 };
point = Point3d { y: 1, .. point };

This gives point a new y, but keeps the old x and z values. It doesn’t have to be the same struct either, you can use this syntax when making new ones, and it will copy the values you don’t specify:

# struct Point3d {
#     x: i32,
#     y: i32,
#     z: i32,
# }
let origin = Point3d { x: 0, y: 0, z: 0 };
let point = Point3d { z: 1, x: 2, .. origin };