01_initial_project_setup.md

Initial Project Setup

We start by creating a new cargo project. Head over to where your project will live, and issue the cargo new <project_name> command. Replace <project_name> with your desired project name.

For my case I ran,

cargo new actix-fullstack

You should have the following file structure,

├── Cargo.lock
├── Cargo.toml
├── src
│   └── main.rs
└── target
    ├── CACHEDIR.TAG
    └── debug

This is just a "hello world" program in Rust. We are going to change that. Head over to https://crates.io/crates/actix-web and add the code sample from the Example section to your main.rs. After which your main.rs should look like this,

use actix_web::{get, web, App, HttpServer, Responder};

#[get("/hello/{name}")]
async fn greet(name: web::Path<String>) -> impl Responder {
    format!("Hello {name}!")
}

#[actix_web::main] // or #[tokio::main]
async fn main() -> std::io::Result<()> {
    HttpServer::new(|| {
        App::new().service(greet)
    })
        .bind(("127.0.0.1", 8080))?
        .run()
        .await
}

Inside the project directory, type in the following,

cargo add actix-web

This should update your project Cargo.toml and the dependencies section should now look like this,

[dependencies]
actix-web = "4.9.0"

We are done with the basic application setup. Let's test this. Hit cargo run from the terminal. Your server should be up and running and would be available at http://localhost:8080. Head over to http://localhost:8080/hello/Name and you shold be greeted with a very warm welcome. Don't forget to replace Name with your name.