Rust Error Handling: Evolving from Monolithic Enums to Elegant Error Sets
2025-06-30
Rust's error handling has been a point of contention. The traditional approach of defining massive error enums per module or crate leads to bloated and hard-to-maintain code. This article explores alternatives: representing individual errors with structs and managing error sets using tools like the `error_set` crate. `error_set` simplifies error enum definition and conversion via macros, supporting composition and subset relationships between error sets for cleaner, more efficient error handling. While extra work is still needed for complex errors requiring additional information, `error_set` provides a more elegant and maintainable approach to Rust error handling.
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