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<ol class="chapter"><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="Chapter_0.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">1.</strong> Update</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="Chapter_1.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">2.</strong> Introduction</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="Chapter_2.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">3.</strong> Who am I?</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="Chapter_3.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">4.</strong> Writing Rust in Easy English</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="Chapter_4.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">5.</strong> Rust Playground</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="Chapter_5.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">6.</strong> 🚧 and ⚠️</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="Chapter_6.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">7.</strong> Comments</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="Chapter_7.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">8.</strong> Types</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="Chapter_8.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">9.</strong> Type inference</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="Chapter_9.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">10.</strong> Printing 'hello, world!'</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="Chapter_10.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">11.</strong> Display and debug</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="Chapter_11.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">12.</strong> Mutability (changing)</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="Chapter_12.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">13.</strong> The stack, the heap, and pointers</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="Chapter_13.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">14.</strong> More about printing</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="Chapter_14.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">15.</strong> Strings</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="Chapter_15.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">16.</strong> const and static</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="Chapter_16.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">17.</strong> More on references</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="Chapter_17.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">18.</strong> Mutable references</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="Chapter_18.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">19.</strong> Giving references to functions</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="Chapter_19.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">20.</strong> Copy types</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="Chapter_20.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">21.</strong> Collection types</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="Chapter_21.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">22.</strong> Vectors</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="Chapter_22.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">23.</strong> Tuples</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="Chapter_23.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">24.</strong> Control flow</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="Chapter_24.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">25.</strong> Structs</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="Chapter_25.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">26.</strong> Enums</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="Chapter_26.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">27.</strong> Loops</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="Chapter_27.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">28.</strong> Implementing structs and enums</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="Chapter_28.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">29.</strong> Destructuring</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="Chapter_29.html" class="active"><strong aria-hidden="true">30.</strong> References and the dot operator</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="Chapter_30.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">31.</strong> Generics</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="Chapter_31.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">32.</strong> Option and Result</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="Chapter_32.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">33.</strong> Other collections</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="Chapter_33.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">34.</strong> The ? operator</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="Chapter_34.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">35.</strong> Traits</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="Chapter_35.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">36.</strong> Chaining methods</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="Chapter_36.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">37.</strong> Iterators</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="Chapter_37.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">38.</strong> Closures</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="Chapter_38.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">39.</strong> The dbg! macro and .inspect</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="Chapter_39.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">40.</strong> Types of &amp;str</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="Chapter_40.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">41.</strong> Lifetimes</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="Chapter_41.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">42.</strong> Interior mutability</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="Chapter_42.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">43.</strong> Cow</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="Chapter_43.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">44.</strong> Type aliases</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="Chapter_44.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">45.</strong> The todo! macro</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="Chapter_45.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">46.</strong> Rc</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="Chapter_46.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">47.</strong> Multiple threads</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="Chapter_47.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">48.</strong> Closures in functions</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="Chapter_48.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">49.</strong> impl Trait</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="Chapter_49.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">50.</strong> Arc</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="Chapter_50.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">51.</strong> Channels</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="Chapter_51.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">52.</strong> Reading Rust documentation</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="Chapter_52.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">53.</strong> Attributes</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="Chapter_53.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">54.</strong> Box</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="Chapter_54.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">55.</strong> Box around traits</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="Chapter_55.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">56.</strong> Default and the builder pattern</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="Chapter_56.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">57.</strong> Deref and DerefMut</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="Chapter_57.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">58.</strong> Crates and modules</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="Chapter_58.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">59.</strong> Testing</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="Chapter_59.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">60.</strong> External crates</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="Chapter_60.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">61.</strong> A tour of the standard library</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="Chapter_61.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">62.</strong> Writing macros</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="Chapter_62.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">63.</strong> cargo</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="Chapter_63.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">64.</strong> Taking user input</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="Chapter_64.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">65.</strong> Using files</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="Chapter_65.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">66.</strong> cargo doc</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="Chapter_66.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">67.</strong> The end?</a></li></ol>
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<h2 id="references-and-the-dot-operator"><a class="header" href="#references-and-the-dot-operator">References and the dot operator</a></h2>
<p>We learned that when you have a reference, you need to use <code>*</code> to get to the value. A reference is a different type, so this won't work:</p>
<pre><pre class="playground"><code class="language-rust">fn main() {
let my_number = 9;
let reference = &amp;my_number;
println!(&quot;{}&quot;, my_number == reference); // ⚠️
}
</code></pre></pre>
<p>The compiler prints:</p>
<pre><code class="language-text">error[E0277]: can't compare `{integer}` with `&amp;{integer}`
--&gt; src\main.rs:5:30
|
5 | println!(&quot;{}&quot;, my_number == reference);
| ^^ no implementation for `{integer} == &amp;{integer}`
</code></pre>
<p>So we change line 5 to <code>println!(&quot;{}&quot;, my_number == *reference);</code> and now it prints <code>true</code> because it's now <code>i32</code> == <code>i32</code>, not <code>i32</code> == <code>&amp;i32</code>. This is called dereferencing.</p>
<p>But when you use a method, Rust will dereference for you. The <code>.</code> in a method is called the dot operator, and it does dereferencing for free.</p>
<p>First, let's make a struct with one <code>u8</code> field. Then we will make a reference to it and try to compare. It will not work:</p>
<pre><pre class="playground"><code class="language-rust">struct Item {
number: u8,
}
fn main() {
let item = Item {
number: 8,
};
let reference_number = &amp;item.number; // reference number type is &amp;u8
println!(&quot;{}&quot;, reference_number == 8); // ⚠️ &amp;u8 and u8 cannot be compared
}
</code></pre></pre>
<p>To make it work, we need to dereference: <code>println!(&quot;{}&quot;, *reference_number == 8);</code>.</p>
<p>But with the dot operator, we don't need <code>*</code>. For example:</p>
<pre><pre class="playground"><code class="language-rust">struct Item {
number: u8,
}
fn main() {
let item = Item {
number: 8,
};
let reference_item = &amp;item;
println!(&quot;{}&quot;, reference_item.number == 8); // we don't need to write *reference_item.number
}
</code></pre></pre>
<p>Now let's create a method for <code>Item</code> that compares <code>number</code> to another number. We don't need to use <code>*</code> anywhere:</p>
<pre><pre class="playground"><code class="language-rust">struct Item {
number: u8,
}
impl Item {
fn compare_number(&amp;self, other_number: u8) { // takes a reference to self
println!(&quot;Are {} and {} equal? {}&quot;, self.number, other_number, self.number == other_number);
// We don't need to write *self.number
}
}
fn main() {
let item = Item {
number: 8,
};
let reference_item = &amp;item; // This is type &amp;Item
let reference_item_two = &amp;reference_item; // This is type &amp;&amp;Item
item.compare_number(8); // the method works
reference_item.compare_number(8); // it works here too
reference_item_two.compare_number(8); // and here
}
</code></pre></pre>
<p>So just remember: when you use the <code>.</code> operator, you don't need to worry about <code>*</code>.</p>
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