Originally published on php2rust.dev — part of the PHP to Rust course. View this lesson on the original site.

match in Rust is an exhaustive pattern matcher. It can match literals, variables, ranges, enums, structs, and more. PHP 8’s match is an expression-based switch that compares by identity.

Rust

fn main() {
    let number = 1;
    match number {
        1 => println!("One"),
        2 => println!("Two"),
        3 => println!("Three"),
        _ => println!("Other"),
    }
}

PHP

<?php
$number = 1;
$result = match ($number) {
    1 => "One",
    2 => "Two",
    3 => "Three",
    default => "Other",
};
echo "$result\n";

Comparison

Rust: Patterns can destructure and bind; must be exhaustive (or use _).
PHP: match compares by ===; default handles remaining cases.
Rust: Arms can be blocks; match is an expression.
PHP: Each arm is an expression; no fall-through.

References

Rust: match
Rust: Pattern matching
PHP: match

What's next

Next: Matching literals.

From PHP to Rust — Rust Syntax and Functions