Challenge 30

Rust Tip: Using zip() to Combine Iterators

When working with multiple collections in Rust, you often need to process corresponding elements together.

The zip() function is a powerful tool for combining two iterators into one, pairing their elements into tuples. This allows you to efficiently handle parallel data.

How It Works

The zip() function takes two iterators and produces an iterator of tuples.

It returns a new iterator that will iterate over two other iterators, returning a tuple where the first element comes from the first iterator, and the second element comes from the second iterator.

In other words, it zips two iterators together, into a single one. If either iterator returns None, next from the zipped iterator will return None.

If the first iterator returns None, zip will short-circuit and next will not be called on the second iterator.

Example:

fn main() {
    let a = vec![1, 2, 3];
    let b = vec![4, 5, 6];

    // consumes the vectors and creates 
    // iterators that yield owned values.
    let zipped: Vec<(i32, i32)> = a.into_iter()
        .zip(b.into_iter())
        .collect();

    println!("{:?}", zipped); // Output: [(1, 4), (2, 5), (3, 6)]
}