A slice is a reference to a sequence of elements in a collection such as a string or array. In this example, the s string is sliced to obtain a reference of the first word and second word in the string.
let s = String::from("hello there");
let firstword = &s[0..5];
let secondword = &s[6..11];
println!("phrase is: {s}");
println!("first word is: {firstword}");
println!("second word is: {secondword}");
The above example prints the following:
phrase is: hello there
first word is: hello
second word is: there
The range syntax can omit the first index when starting at index zero. It can also omit the last index if the last item is included in the range.
let firstword = &s[..5];
let secondword = &s[6..];
println!("first word is: {firstword}");
println!("second word is: {secondword}\n");
This prints the same output as the previous example:
first word is: hello
second word is: there
Slices can be applied to arrays as shown below.
let items = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5];
let slice = &items[1..4];
println!("items are: {:?}", items);
println!("items slice is: {:?}", slice);
items are: [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
items slice is: [2, 3, 4]
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