In the previous article, we learned how to get input from the user as a String. However, to build useful applications, we often need to convert that string into a different type, like a number. This process is called parsing. In this article, we'll explore how to parse strings into numbers and handle the potential errors that can occur.
We've already touched on Rust's two main string types, &str and String. In this article, we're going to take a deeper dive into the String type, which is a growable, mutable, owned, UTF-8 encoded string type. It is one of the most common and useful collection types in Rust.
After exploring compound types like tuples and arrays, we need to address one of the most common and important data types in any language &str (a string slice) and String.