Exploring the Differences Between Rust and C: Migrating from C to Rust

Introduction

System programming languages like C have been monumental in the development of low-level systems due to their speed and control over hardware resources. However, Rust has now emerged as a strong contender, offering modern features like memory safety, advanced concurrency models, and expressive type systems.

This article provides a technical deep dive into the fundamental differences between Rust and C and offers a detailed guide on migrating from C to Rust, complete with code comparisons and best practices.

Technical Differences Explored

Memory Safety and Management

In C, programmers have direct control over memory through manual allocation (malloc) and deallocation (free). This control comes at the cost of potential memory safety issues, such as use-after-free, buffer overflows, and memory leaks, which are common sources of vulnerabilities in C programs.