Book Image

Practical System Programming for Rust Developers

By : Prabhu Eshwarla
Book Image

Practical System Programming for Rust Developers

By: Prabhu Eshwarla

Overview of this book

Modern programming languages such as Python, JavaScript, and Java have become increasingly accepted for application-level programming, but for systems programming, C and C++ are predominantly used due to the need for low-level control of system resources. Rust promises the best of both worlds: the type safety of Java, and the speed and expressiveness of C++, while also including memory safety without a garbage collector. This book is a comprehensive introduction if you’re new to Rust and systems programming and are looking to build reliable and efficient systems software without C or C++. The book takes a unique approach by starting each topic with Linux kernel concepts and APIs relevant to that topic. You’ll also explore how system resources can be controlled from Rust. As you progress, you’ll delve into advanced topics. You’ll cover network programming, focusing on aspects such as working with low-level network primitives and protocols in Rust, before going on to learn how to use and compile Rust with WebAssembly. Later chapters will take you through practical code examples and projects to help you build on your knowledge. By the end of this Rust programming book, you will be equipped with practical skills to write systems software tools, libraries, and utilities in Rust.
Table of Contents (17 chapters)
1
Section 1: Getting Started with System Programming in Rust
6
Section 2: Managing and Controlling System Resources in Rust
12
Section 3: Advanced Topics

Chapter 10: Working with Device I/O

In Chapter 6, Working with Files and Directories in Rust, we covered the details of how to perform file I/O operations (such as reading and writing to files) using the Rust Standard Library. In Unix-like operating systems, a file is an abstraction that is used to work not only with regular disk files (which are used to store data) but also with several types of devices that are connected to a machine. In this chapter, we will look at the features of the Rust Standard Library that enable us to perform reads and writes to any type of device (also called device I/O) in Rust. Device I/O is an essential aspect of system programming to monitor and control various types of devices attached to a computer, such as keyboards, USB cameras, printers, and sound cards. You may be curious to know what support Rust provides to a system programmer to handle all these different types of devices. We'll answer this question as we go through the chapter.

In this...