Generic structs in Rust - Mini Project: Build & Apply

Using Generic Structs in Rust

📖 Scenario: You are building a simple program to store pairs of values. Sometimes these values are numbers, sometimes text, or even a mix. Using generic structs in Rust helps you create one flexible container that works with any type.

🎯 Goal: Create a generic struct called Pair that can hold two values of any type. Then, create an instance of this struct with specific types and print its contents.

📋 What You'll Learn

Define a generic struct named Pair with two fields: first and second.

Create a variable called pair that holds a Pair of i32 and f64.

Assign the values 10 to first and 20.5 to second.

Print the values of pair.first and pair.second.

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Generic structs let you write flexible code that works with many data types, useful in libraries and applications where data types vary.

💼 Career

Understanding generics is important for Rust developers to write reusable and type-safe code, a key skill in systems programming and backend development.

1

Define a generic struct

Define a generic struct called Pair with two fields: first and second. Use generic type parameters T and U for the field types.

Rust

# Define the generic struct Pair with fields first and second
# Your code here

Hint

Use struct Pair<T, U> { first: T, second: U } to define the generic struct.

2

Create an instance of the generic struct

Create a variable called pair that holds a Pair with i32 as T and f64 as U. Assign 10 to first and 20.5 to second.

Rust

struct Pair {
    first: T,
    second: U,
}

// Create a variable pair with Pair and assign values
# Your code here

Hint

Use let pair = Pair { first: 10, second: 20.5 }; to create the instance.

3

Implement a method to display the pair

Implement a method called display for the Pair struct that prints the values of first and second. Use impl<T: std::fmt::Display, U: std::fmt::Display> Pair<T, U> to allow printing.

Rust

struct Pair {
    first: T,
    second: U,
}

let pair = Pair { first: 10, second: 20.5 };

// Implement display method for Pair
# Your code here

Hint

Use an impl block with trait bounds T: Display and U: Display to define the display method.

4

Call the display method to show the pair

Call the display method on the pair variable to print its values.

Rust

struct Pair {
    first: T,
    second: U,
}

impl Pair {
    fn display(&self) {
        println!("First: {}, Second: {}", self.first, self.second);
    }
}

let pair = Pair { first: 10, second: 20.5 };

// Call the display method on pair
# Your code here

Hint

Call pair.display(); to print the values.