% Rust Documentation



Welcome to an overview of the documentation provided by the [Rust
project]. This page contains links to various helpful references,
most of which are available offline (if opened with `rustup doc`). Many of these
resources take the form of "books"; we collectively call these "The Rust
Bookshelf." Some are large, some are small.

All of these books are managed by the Rust Organization, but other unofficial
documentation resources are included here as well!

If you're just looking for the standard library reference, here it is:
[Rust API documentation](std/index.html)

## Learning Rust

If you'd like to learn Rust, this is the section for you! All of these resources
assume that you have programmed before, but not in any specific language:

### The Rust Programming Language

Affectionately nicknamed "the book," [The Rust Programming Language](book/index.html)
will give you an overview of the language from first principles. You'll build a
few projects along the way, and by the end, you'll have a solid grasp of how to
use the language.

### Rust By Example

If reading multiple hundreds of pages about a language isn't your style, then
[Rust By Example](rust-by-example/index.html) has you covered. RBE shows off a
bunch of code without using a lot of words. It also includes exercises!

### Rustlings

[Rustlings](https://github.com/rust-lang/rustlings) guides you
through downloading and setting up the Rust toolchain, then provides an
interactive tool that teaches you how to solve coding challenges in Rust.

### Rust Playground

The [Rust Playground](https://play.rust-lang.org) is a great place
to try out and share small bits of code, or experiment with some of the most
popular crates.

## Using Rust

Once you've gotten familiar with the language, these resources can help you put
it to work.

### The Standard Library

Rust's standard library has [extensive API documentation](std/index.html), with
explanations of how to use various things, as well as example code for
accomplishing various tasks. Code examples have a "Run" button on hover that
opens the sample in the playground.

    Search

### Your Personal Documentation

Whenever you are working in a crate, `cargo doc --open` will generate
documentation for your project _and_ all its dependencies in their correct
version, and open it in your browser. Add the flag `--document-private-items` to
also show items not marked `pub`.

### Rust Version History

[The Release Notes](releases.html) describes the change history of the Rust
toolchain and language.

[The Edition Guide](edition-guide/index.html) describes the Rust editions and
their differences. The latest version of the toolchain supports all
historical editions.

### The `rustc` Book

[The `rustc` Book](rustc/index.html) describes the Rust compiler, `rustc`.

### The Cargo Book

[The Cargo Book](../../cargo/book/index.html) is a guide to Cargo, Rust's build tool and
dependency manager.

### The Rustdoc Book

[The Rustdoc Book](rustdoc/index.html) describes our documentation tool, `rustdoc`.

### The Clippy Book

[The Clippy Book](clippy/index.html) describes our static analyzer, Clippy.

### Extended Error Listing

Many of Rust's errors come with error codes, and you can request extended
diagnostics from the compiler on those errors (with `rustc --explain`). You can
also read them here if you prefer: [rustc error codes](error_codes/index.html)


## Mastering Rust

Once you're quite familiar with the language, you may find these advanced
resources useful.

### The Reference

[The Reference](reference/index.html) is not a formal spec, but is more detailed
and comprehensive than the book.

### The Style Guide

[The Rust Style Guide](style-guide/index.html) describes the standard formatting
of Rust code. Most developers use `cargo fmt` to invoke `rustfmt` and format the
code automatically (the result matches this style guide).

### The Rustonomicon

[The Rustonomicon](nomicon/index.html) is your guidebook to the dark arts of
unsafe Rust. It's also sometimes called "the 'nomicon."

### The Unstable Book

[The Unstable Book](unstable-book/index.html) has documentation for unstable
features.

### The `rustc` Development Guide

[The `rustc-dev-guide`](https://rustc-dev-guide.rust-lang.org/)
documents how the compiler works and how to contribute to it. This is useful if
you want to build or modify the Rust compiler from source (e.g. to target
something non-standard).


## Specialized Rust

When using Rust in specific domains, consider using the following resources
tailored to each area.

### Embedded Systems

When developing for Bare Metal or Embedded Linux systems, you may find these
resources maintained by the [Embedded Working Group] useful.

[Embedded Working Group]: https://github.com/rust-embedded

#### The Embedded Rust Book

[The Embedded Rust Book] is targeted at developers familiar with embedded
development and familiar with Rust, but have not used Rust for embedded
development.

[The Embedded Rust Book]: embedded-book/index.html
[Rust project]: https://www.rust-lang.org


