Sending data across threads

So far, we've looked at threads that work independently. Now, let's take a look at intertwined threads that need to share data. This situation is common when setting up servers, as the thread receiving client messages is usually not the same as the one that actually handles and responds to the client input. Rust gives us the concept of channels as a solution. A channel is split into a sender and a receiver which can share data across threads.

How to do it...

1. Open the Cargo.toml file that was  generated earlier for you.

2. Under [dependencies], add the following line:

rand = "0.4.2"

3. If you want, you can go to rand's crates.io page (https://crates.io/crates/rand) to check for the newest version and use that one instead.

4. In the folder bin, create a file called channels.rs.

5. Add the following code and run it with cargo run --bin channels:

1  extern crate rand;
2 
3  use rand::Rng;
4  use std::thread;
5  // mpsc stands for "Multi-producer, single-consumer"
6  use std::sync::mpsc...