I played around with a few different configurations for that particular part, even having something similar to yours that looked like match line.chars().next

I played around with a few different configurations for that particular part, even having something similar to yours that looked like match line.chars().next() { Some(x) => match x { '#' => ... 'v' => ... _ => ... }, None => ... } But I felt that the current approach was fine. At this point it becomes more a decision of style and taste vs any kind of practicality.