while let loops

Like with if let, there is a while let variant which repeatedly tests a value against a pattern:

fn main() {
    let v = vec![10, 20, 30];
    let mut iter = v.into_iter();

    while let Some(x) = iter.next() {
        println!("x: {x}");
    }
}

Here the iterator returned by v.into_iter() will return a Option<i32> on every call to next(). It returns Some(x) until it is done, after which it will return None. The while let lets us keep iterating through all items.

See pattern matching for more details on patterns in Rust.

  • Point out that the while let loop will keep going as long as the value matches the pattern.
  • You could rewrite the while let loop as an infinite loop with an if statement that breaks when there is no value to unwrap for iter.next(). The while let provides syntactic sugar for the above scenario.