rust-panic-vs-result

Rust panic is for unrecoverable invariant violations, while Result<T, E> handles recoverable errors. Use panic when assumptions are broken and the program cannot safely continue, and use Result to propagate errors for caller recovery.

The Rust question mark operator propagates errors by returning a Result early if the operation fails. Combine the question mark operator with From trait implementations to convert and propagate specific error types across API boundaries.

Rust unwrap and expect are best reserved for testing or when invariants are guaranteed. In production library and application code, replace unwrap with explicit Result handling to prevent unexpected panics and improve error path maintainability.

The Rust From trait converts errors by implementing From for a target error type, allowing the question mark operator to automatically transform specific errors into a unified error type across API boundaries.

Rust library code should return Result instead of panicking to let callers decide error recovery. Reserve panic for broken invariants where continuing is impossible, ensuring robust error handling at API boundaries.