Idiomatic Rust Snippets

What is the purpose of #[derive(Debug)]?

The #[derive(Debug)] attribute in Rust automatically generates an implementation of the Debug trait for a struct or enum. This trait allows you to format the value using the {:?} formatter, which is useful for debugging purposes.

#[derive(Debug)]
struct Person {
    name: String,
    age: u32,
}

fn main() {
    let person = Person {
        name: String::from("Alice"),
        age: 30,
    };

    // Print the person struct using the Debug trait
    println!("{:?}", person);
}

The Person struct derives the Debug trait, allowing us to print its value using println!("{:?}", person);. The output will be:

Person { name: "Alice", age: 30 }

This makes it easier to inspect the values of complex data structures during development and debugging.