Project 2: Creating Shell Commands Using Rust

Getting Started

If using Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL), start with:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt install build-essential

Then install Rust:

curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://sh.rustup.rs | sh

Click on the Extensions icon:

Install:

You can open a Unix shell within Visual Studio Code with CTRL-`.

From a command line, type:

cargo new shell
cd shell/src/
mkdir bin
mv main.rs bin/cmd.rs

Then open VSCode and open the shells folder. Open bin/cmd.rs and paste in the code below:

fn main() {
    for arg in std::env::args() {
        println!("{arg}");
    }
}

To execute this program in the shell:

cargo run --bin cmd a b c

Implement the following shell commands as Rust programs. You might find the fs module useful in writing many of these programs:

dir: Prints out all of the names of the files and directories in the current directory. It will not employ any command-line arguments.
destroy: Delete every file in the list of command-line arguments.
newname: This program expects two command-line arguments. It will give a “usage” message if it does not receive them. It will change the name of the file given by the first argument to be the name given by the second argument.
duplicate: This program also expects two command-line arguments. It will give a “usage” message if it does not receive them. It will make a copy of the file given by the first argument with the name given by the second argument.
start: Prints out the first ten lines of each file listed in the command-line arguments. If the first argument begins with a dash, use the number immediately following the dash instead of ten.
counter: Prints out the number of words, lines, and characters for each file listed in its command-line arguments. If the first argument begins with a dash, the letters “w”, “l”, and “c” immediately following the dash indicate which of words, lines, and characters get displayed.