rhai/doc/src/engine/hello-world.md

Hello World in Rhai

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To get going with Rhai is as simple as creating an instance of the scripting engine rhai::Engine via Engine::new, then calling the eval method:

use rhai::{Engine, EvalAltResult};

fn main() -> Result<(), Box<EvalAltResult>>
{
    let engine = Engine::new();

    let result = engine.eval::<i64>("40 + 2")?;
    //                      ^^^^^^^ cast the result to an 'i64', this is required

    println!("Answer: {}", result);             // prints 42

    Ok(())
}

Evaluate a script file directly:

// 'eval_file' takes a 'PathBuf'
let result = engine.eval_file::<i64>("hello_world.rhai".into())?;

Error Type

rhai::EvalAltResult is the standard Rhai error type, which is a Rust enum containing all errors encountered during the parsing or evaluation process.

Return Type

The type parameter for Engine::eval is used to specify the type of the return value, which must match the actual type or an error is returned. Rhai is very strict here.

There are two ways to specify the return type – turbofish notation, or type inference.

Use [Dynamic] for uncertain return types.

let result = engine.eval::<i64>("40 + 2")?;     // return type is i64, specified using 'turbofish' notation

let result: i64 = engine.eval("40 + 2")?;       // return type is inferred to be i64

result.is::<i64>() == true;

let result: Dynamic = engine.eval("boo()")?;    // use 'Dynamic' if you're not sure what type it'll be!

let result = engine.eval::<String>("40 + 2")?;  // returns an error because the actual return type is i64, not String