Minimum Value of Three in Rust

There are three candidates to the solution: A, B and C. We should try out each of them until we find the correct one. How can we check if A is the solution? What should happen for A to be the minimum value?

A is the minimum value if A <= B and A <= C. We can write an if statement checking these conditions and if they hold, return A:

if A <= B and A <= C:
	return A

What if the conditions don't hold and A is not the solution? What should we do next?

We should test B. Similarly, B is the minimum value if B <= A and B <= C. We can write an if statement checking these conditions and if they hold, return B:

if A <= B and A <= C:
	return A
if B <= A and B <= C:
	return B

What if not even B is the solution?

Then, it's clear that C is the solution, so we should return C. We don't even need to check the conditions anymore:

if A <= B and A <= C:
	return A
if B <= A and B <= C:
	return B
return C

While the solution above is very good, we propose another one which is more scalable (i.e. works better for a larger number of values). It involves going throught the numbers and using a variable minVal to store the minimum one found so far:

minVal = A
if B < minVal:
	minVal = B
if C < minVal:
	minVal = C
return minVal

Please watch the video solution for a better understanding of this solution.