# Introduction

This book is the primary reference for the Rust programming language. It
provides three kinds of material:

  - Chapters that informally describe each language construct and their use.
  - Chapters that informally describe the memory model, concurrency model,
    runtime services, linkage model, and debugging facilities.
  - Appendix chapters providing rationale and references to languages that
    influenced the design.

<div class="warning">

Warning: This book is incomplete. Documenting everything takes a while. See
the [GitHub issues] for what is not documented in this book.

</div>

## What *The Reference* is Not

This book does not serve as an introduction to the language. Background
familiarity with the language is assumed. A separate [book] is available to
help acquire such background familiarity.

This book also does not serve as a reference to the [standard library]
included in the language distribution. Those libraries are documented
separately by extracting documentation attributes from their source code. Many
of the features that one might expect to be language features are library
features in Rust, so what you're looking for may be there, not here.

Similarly, this book does not usually document the specifics of `rustc` as a
tool or of Cargo. `rustc` has its own [book][rustc book]. Cargo has a
[book][cargo book] that contains a [reference][cargo reference]. There are a few
pages such as [linkage] that still describe how `rustc` works.

This book also only serves as a reference to what is available in stable
Rust. For unstable features being worked on, see the [Unstable Book].

Rust compilers, including `rustc`, will perform optimizations. The reference
does not specify what optimizations are allowed or disallowed. Instead, think of
the compiled program as a black box. You can only probe by running it, feeding
it input and observing its output. Everything that happens that way must conform
to what the reference says.

Finally, this book is not normative. It may include details that are
specific to `rustc` itself, and should not be taken as a specification for
the Rust language. We intend to produce such a book someday, and until then,
the reference is the closest thing we have to one.

## How to Use This Book

This book does not assume you are reading this book sequentially. Each
chapter generally can be read standalone, but will cross-link to other chapters
for facets of the language they refer to, but do not discuss.

There are two main ways to read this document.

The first is to answer a specific question. If you know which chapter answers
that question, you can jump to that chapter in the table of contents. Otherwise,
you can press `s` or the click the magnifying glass on the top bar to search for
keywords related to your question. For example, say you wanted to know when a
temporary value created in a let statement is dropped. If you didn't already
know that the [lifetime of temporaries] is defined in the [expressions chapter],
you could search "temporary let" and the first search result will take you to
that section.

The second is to generally improve your knowledge of a facet of the language.
In that case, just browse the table of contents until you see something you
want to know more about, and just start reading. If a link looks interesting,
click it, and read about that section.

That said, there is no wrong way to read this book. Read it however you feel
helps you best.

### Conventions

Like all technical books, this book has certain conventions in how it displays
information. These conventions are documented here.

* Statements that define a term contain that term in *italics*. Whenever that
  term is used outside of that chapter, it is usually a link to the section that
  has this definition.

  An *example term* is an example of a term being defined.

* Differences in the language by which edition the crate is compiled under are
  in a blockquote that start with the words "Edition Differences:" in **bold**.

  > **Edition Differences**: In the 2015 edition, this syntax is valid that is
  > disallowed as of the 2018 edition.

* Notes that contain useful information about the state of the book or point out
  useful, but mostly out of scope, information are in blockquotes that start
  with the word "Note:" in **bold**.

  > **Note**: This is an example note.

* Warnings that show unsound behavior in the language or possibly confusing
  interactions of language features are in a special warning box.

  <div class="warning">

  Warning: This is an example warning.

  </div>

* Code snippets inline in the text are inside `<code>` tags.

  Longer code examples are in a syntax highlighted box that has controls for
  copying, executing, and showing hidden lines in the top right corner.

  ```rust
  # // This is a hidden line.
  fn main() {
      println!("This is a code example");
  }
  ```

* The grammar and lexical structure is in blockquotes with either "Lexer" or
  "Syntax" in <sup>**bold superscript**</sup> as the first line.

  > **<sup>Syntax</sup>**\
  > _ExampleGrammar_:\
  > &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; `~` [_Expression_]\
  > &nbsp;&nbsp; | `box` [_Expression_]

  See [Notation] for more detail.

## Contributing

We welcome contributions of all kinds.

You can contribute to this book by opening an issue or sending a pull
request to [the Rust Reference repository]. If this book does not answer
your question, and you think its answer is in scope of it, please do not
hesitate to [file an issue] or ask about it in the `t-lang/doc` stream on
[Zulip]. Knowing what people use this book for the most helps direct our
attention to making those sections the best that they can be. We also want
the reference to be as normative as possible, so if you see anything that is
wrong or is non-normative but not specifically called out, please also [file
an issue].

[book]: ../book/index.html
[github issues]: https://github.com/rust-lang/reference/issues
[standard library]: ../std/index.html
[the Rust Reference repository]: https://github.com/rust-lang/reference/
[Unstable Book]: https://doc.rust-lang.org/nightly/unstable-book/
[_Expression_]: expressions.md
[cargo book]: ../cargo/index.html
[cargo reference]: ../cargo/reference/index.html
[expressions chapter]: expressions.html
[file an issue]: https://github.com/rust-lang/reference/issues
[lifetime of temporaries]: expressions.html#temporaries
[linkage]: linkage.html
[rustc book]: ../rustc/index.html
[Notation]: notation.md
[Zulip]: https://rust-lang.zulipchat.com/#narrow/stream/237824-t-lang.2Fdoc
