Howtos for The Rest of Us

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Rust Standards

Coding conventions and patterns for the NotAlterra project.

Error Handling

• Use anyhow::Result for fallible functions - no custom error types
• anyhow::bail! for early returns with context
• .with_context(|| format!(...)) on Result from external crates
• Avoid unwrap() and expect() outside of tests and examples
• Use let _ = fallible_fn() when deliberately ignoring errors

File I/O

• Prefer std::fs convenience functions for simple operations (fs::read(), fs::write(), fs::read_dir())
• Use PathBuf for owned paths, &Path for borrowed references
• Validate paths early with path.exists() before operations
• Use saturating_sub for all arithmetic that could underflow

String Handling

• Use format!() for construction, avoid + concatenation
• Use to_string_lossy() for OsStr → String conversion
• Strip control characters from user input before storage or logging

Data Structures

• Prefer Vec over linked lists or custom containers
• Use HashSet for deduplication
• Use Option<T> for nullable values - never null or sentinel values
• Use struct with named fields for complex return types
• Derive Debug, Clone on all data structures, Default where meaningful

Pattern: Property Extraction (GVAS parser)

All four extractors follow the same pattern:

1. Scan for property name using windows(target.len()).position()
2. Validate the FName header (length dword + null terminator)
3. Skip past the property type name
4. Validate bounds before every index access
5. Return Option or Result - never panic

When adding a new property type, follow this exact pattern and add a bounds check on every array access.

Pattern: TUI Dialogs

All dialogs follow the same structure:

1. Define popup area with centered_rect_size() or centered_rect()
2. Render Clear widget, then a bordered Block
3. Compute inner area with margin
4. Render title, body, buttons in sequence
5. Call draw_whale_separator(f, bar, app) at the bottom

Pattern: Menu Actions

All menu actions:

1. Validate preconditions (save folder set, backup exists)
2. Show status/spinner if the operation takes time
3. Call through to ops::* for actual file operations
4. Log via guard::log_action() with sanitized paths
5. Show result dialog (success or error)
6. Refresh dashboard stats

Clippy

• -D warnings enforced in CI - no exceptions
• Fix lints immediately when CI catches new ones
• Common lints that have fired: collapsible_match, manual_is_multiple_of, empty_line_after_doc_comments, needless_borrows_for_generic_args

Dependencies

• Prefer crates with 50M+ downloads for core functionality
• Avoid platform-specific FFI - prefer pure Rust where possible
• Keep dependency count minimal - each new crate is a review point
• Run cargo audit and cargo deny before each release