rust
- Read a binary file and embed it in the final executable as an array of bytes.
- Create a
HashSet(Python folks: aset()of items of a specific type) where each element is an array of bytes. - Skip the first 7 bytes of the binary file using Python-like slice notation.
- Create an iterator that emits 10-byte portions of the rest of the file, one at a time.
- Collect all the values from that iterator into… oh!, a
HashSet<&[u8]>because Rust can tell what the type of the target variable is, so why make me repeat myself?
Google writes safer code with Rust
From “Google hails move to Rust for huge drop in memory vulnerabilities”:
In Google’s own shift towards using memory safe programming languages there has been a significant drop in the number of memory-related vulnerabilities, with memory safe vulnerabilities down to 24% in 2024 - a stark contrast from 2019 [76%] and well below the industry norm of 70%.
Memory safety is not the same as safety. You can still write bad logic in any language. It “just” gets rid of the majority of bugs so that programmers can concentrate on the more interesting parts.
Also, yes, of course you can write safe C code. No one with a large codebase ever has in practice, but it’s at least hypothetically possible. Wouldn’t rather not have to, though?
Sometimes Rust makes me so happy. I wrote this over the weekend:
let embedded_data = include_bytes!("../static/data.bin");
let my_set: HashSet<&[u8]> = embedded_data[7..].chunks(10).collect();
It does this:
Rust isn’t magic. Other languages can do similar things if you poke at them enough. It’s more that 2 lines of builtin Rust can readably implement a reasonably sophisticated set of operations that get compiled into a static executable. That’s a very pleasant combination of features.