Summary
In this chapter, we reviewed the basics of file management at the operating system level, and the main system calls to work with files. We then learned how to use the Rust Standard Library to open and close a file, read and write to a file, query file metadata, and work with links. After file operations, we learned how to do directory and path operations in Rust. In the third section, we saw how to create hard links and soft (symbolic) links using Rust, and how to query symlinks.
We then developed a shell command that computed source code metrics for Rust source files within a directory tree. This project illustrated how to perform various file and directory operations in Rust using a practical example, and reinforced the concepts of the Rust Standard Library for file I/O operations.
Continuing with the topic of I/O, in the next chapter, we will learn the basics of terminal I/O and the features Rust provides to work with pseudo terminals.
