I followed the code to open a file from Rust by Example:
use std::{env, fs::File, path::Path};
fn main() {
let args: Vec<_> = env::args().collect();
let pattern = &args[1];
if let Some(a) = env::args().nth(2) {
let path = Path::new(&a);
let mut file = File::open(&path);
let mut s = String::new();
file.read_to_string(&mut s);
println!("{:?}", s);
} else {
//do something
}
}
However, I got a message like this:
error[E0599]: no method named `read_to_string` found for type `std::result::Result<std::fs::File, std::io::Error>` in the current scope
--> src/main.rs:11:14
|
11 | file.read_to_string(&mut s);
| ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
What am I doing wrong?
Let's look at your error message:
error[E0599]: no method named `read_to_string` found for type `std::result::Result<std::fs::File, std::io::Error>` in the current scope
--> src/main.rs:11:14
|
11 | file.read_to_string(&mut s);
| ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
The error message is pretty much what it says on the tin - the type Result
does not have the method read_to_string
. That's actually a method on the trait Read
.
You have a Result
because File::open(&path)
can fail. Failure is represented with the Result
type. A Result
may be either an Ok
, which is the success case, or an Err
, the failure case.
You need to handle the failure case somehow. The easiest is to just die on failure, using expect
:
let mut file = File::open(&path).expect("Unable to open");
You'll also need to bring Read
into scope to have access to read_to_string
:
use std::io::Read;
I'd highly recommend reading through The Rust Programming Language and working the examples. The chapter Recoverable Errors with Result
will be highly relevant. I think these docs are top-notch!