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Competitive Programming with Rust

  • Sep 30, 2023

Competitive Programming demands a strong understanding of algorithms, data structures, and the ability to code swiftly. Rust, with its safety features and high-performance capabilities, is a good choice for competitive programming. This post introduces the advantages of Rust and provides insights into useful tools for competitions.

Advantages of Rust

1. Safety and Reliability

Rust boasts a powerful type system that guarantees memory safety. This prevents runtime errors, making it easier to write secure code.

2. Good Performance

Rust’s performance rivals that of C and C++, a crucial factor when competing against time constraints. This advantage becomes evident when implementing complex algorithms or handling large datasets.

3. Libraries and Tools

rust-competitive-helper provides tools and templates tailored for competitive programming. example-contests-workspace simplifies the process of setting up a contest environment. Utilize EgorKulikov/rust_algo and EbTech/rust-algorithms for a collection of data structures and algorithms. These libraries enable rapid implementation during competitions.

Getting Started with Rust

1. Installing Rust and IDE

  • Begin by installing Rust from the official website.
  • Choose the installation method suitable for your platform.
  • Jetbrains:RustRover is a powerful IDE for Rust. Install this from the official website.

2. Installing rust-competitive-helper

  • Switch default rust toolchain to nightly: 
    $ rustup default nightly
  • Install rust-competitive-helper binary: 
    $ cargo install --git https://github.com/rust-competitive-helper/rust-competitive-helper
  • Fork rust-competitive-helper repository on github, clone it locally
  • Fork example-contests-workspace repository on github, clone it locally, open in RustRover
  • In RustRover terminal, run rust-competitive-helper from current directory
    • Linux 
      $ ./rust-competitive-helper
    • Windows 
      $ start rust-competitive-helper

      If it has operated correctly, an executable program will run.

3. To use with competitive-companion:

  • Add 4244 to custom ports in plugin
  • Choose Run listener in rust-competitive-helper
  • Click Parse task in plugin
  • Project for this task will be created and opened in RustRover
  • Testing should be done by running main.rs in corresponding crate
  • Submit ./main/src/main.rs

Following the instructions provided above, you have completed the basic setup for solving problems in Rust. If you’re curious about the additional data structures and algorithms set up in example-contests-workspace, refer to EgorKulikov/rust_algo or hongjun7/cp-rust.

Useful resource for learning Rust

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