Intro to Embedded Rust Part 6: Generics and Traits | DigiKey

In this tutorial, we cover generics and traits in Rust. Generics allow you to write functions, structs, and enums that work with multiple types without code duplication (similar to templates in C++ but with zero runtime overhead through monomorphization). Traits define shared behavior across different types, acting like interfaces in other languages to create contracts that guarantee specific functionality. The written guide for this episode can be found here: https://www.digikey.com/en/maker/tutorials/2026/intro-to-embedded-rust-part-6-generics-and-traits The GitHub repository containing the Docker image and example code for this series can be found here: https://github.com/ShawnHymel/introduction-to-embedded-rust This guide walks through five key examples demonstrating generics and traits in action. We start with generic functions, showing how a single swap<T, U>() function can work with any tuple types instead of writing separate functions for each combination. You'll learn about trait definitions and implementations, creating a Hello trait and implementing it for a Person struct to demonstrate polymorphic behavior. We also cover trait bounds in detail, explaining how to constrain generic types to only those implementing specific traits. We explore generic structs with the Pair<T, U> example, showing how to create data structures that work with any types while maintaining compile-time type safety, and demonstrate generic enums by building a simplified version of Rust's Option<T> type. We’ll also discuss monomorphization: how the Rust compiler generates optimized, type-specific code for each usage of your generic functions with zero runtime cost. We also demonstrate pattern matching with generic enums, the difference between consuming ownership (self) versus borrowing (&self) in methods, and how trait bounds prevent compile-time errors by ensuring only compatible types can be used.