Vector in Rust

Vector:

• stores value of same type
• stores values next to each other in heap
• can store values dynamically

creating a Vector

when using associate function ::new(), one must use type annotation so that compiler have info about what kind of values to be stored in there

```rust // empty vector let v1: Vec = Vec::new();

// vecor with some initial values let v2: vec![1, 2, 3]; ```

updating a vector

Vector provide methods for running operations on any of its instances.

```rust let mut v = Vec::new();

// add new values v.push(5); v.push(10); ```

when a vector is dropped, all its content would vanish as well

accessing values

vectors are indexed by number, starting at 0

there are two ways to access a vactor element. first way is similar to accessing array elements. second option is, using vector-specific methods

1. accessing using & and []

```rust {hl_lines=[2]} let v = vec![1, 2, 3]; println!("first element: {}", &v[0]);

println!("{}", &v[1000]); // panics ```

This methods is quite straightforward. but it would create panic when the index is out of bound.

1. using .get()

```rust {hl_lines=[3]} let v = vec![1, 2, 4];

match v.get(2) { Some(third) => println!("third element is: {}", third), None => println("no third element present"), } ```

.get() returns enum Option<T> which have two variants: Some<T> and None.

while holding a reference to an item, new items cannot be added. check out the following code for example:

```rust // won't compile let mut v = vec![1, 2, 3, 4, 5];

let first = &v[0];

v.push(6);

println!("The first element is: {}", first); ```

this is because of Rust's borrowing rules. When holding a reference to an element, pointer would point to an specific memory location. if new item gets added, the length of Vector would expand making it not able to fit in current memory sequence at times. if that happens, the whole vector would be relocated to an available continous memory location. This, in turn, would make the reference to previously allocated memory invalid. Hence Rust does not allow it.

iterating & mutating a vector

one could iterate over a vector using for loop.

``rust let v = vec![1, 2, 4, 5]; for i in &mut v { // prints the value ofi` println!("{}", i);

// modify i *i += 10; } ```

* is known as dereference operator. & returns reference to the element. so, in order to edit that element, we must get its true value.

using enum to store multiple types

```rust enum SpreadsheetCell { Int(i32), Float(f64), Text(String), }

let row = vec![ SpreadsheetCell::Int(3), SpreadsheetCell::Text(String::from("blue")), SpreadsheetCell::Float(10.12), ]; ```