Rust System Programming Project

A memory management inspector demonstrating low-level programming concepts in Rust.

Concepts Covered

This project demonstrates several important Rust concepts for system programming:

1. Low-Level Memory Management with std::alloc
2. Unsafe Code and when to use it appropriately
3. Raw Pointers and pointer manipulation
4. Custom Data Structures implementation
5. Manual Memory Allocation and Deallocation
6. Drop Trait for automatic cleanup
7. Layout and Alignment considerations
8. Performance Tracking and system monitoring

Project Structure

system-programming/
├── Cargo.toml
└── src/
    └── main.rs

Setup

1. Make sure you have Rust and Cargo installed:

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

2. Navigate to the project directory:

   cd rust-tutorial/projects/system-programming

3. Build and run the project:

   cargo run

How It Works

The project demonstrates two key aspects of system programming in Rust:

Memory Tracker

A custom memory tracking system that monitors allocations and deallocations:

• Tracks total bytes allocated
• Tracks total bytes deallocated
• Monitors current memory usage
• Records peak memory usage
• Reports net memory change

Unsafe Vector Implementation

A custom vector implementation using unsafe code:

• Manual memory allocation with alloc
• Raw pointer manipulation
• Custom growth strategy
• Safe abstraction over unsafe operations
• Automatic cleanup with Drop trait

Key Components

1. MemoryTracker struct - Tracks memory allocation statistics
2. SystemInfo struct - Wraps the memory tracker with timing information
3. UnsafeVec struct - Custom vector implementation using raw pointers
4. Unsafe code blocks - Demonstrates proper usage of unsafe Rust
5. Manual memory management - Shows how to allocate and deallocate memory

Safety Considerations

This project demonstrates how to use unsafe code responsibly:

• All unsafe blocks are minimized and well-documented
• Proper error handling for memory operations
• Automatic cleanup with the Drop trait
• Memory layout considerations for alignment

Running Tests

To run the tests for this project:

cargo test

Building for Release

To build an optimized version for release:

cargo build --release

The executable will be in target/release/rust-tutorial-system.

Extending the Project

Possible extensions for this project:

1. Add memory leak detection capabilities
2. Implement different allocation strategies
3. Add support for tracking different types of allocations
4. Implement a garbage collector simulation
5. Add memory profiling features
6. Implement custom smart pointers
7. Add support for memory mapping files
8. Implement a simple virtual memory system