This (short) chapter will explain the concept of resources, data which is shared between systems.

First of all, when would you need resources? There's actually a great example in chapter 3, where we just faked the delta time when applying the velocity. Let's see how we can do this the right way.

struct DeltaTime(f32);

Note: In practice you may want to use std::time::Duration instead, because you shouldn't use f32s for durations in an actual game, because they're not precise enough.

Adding this resource to our world is pretty easy:

world.add_resource(DeltaTime(0.05)); // Let's use some start value

To update the delta time, just use

let delta = world.write_resource::<DeltaTime>();
*delta = DeltaTime(0.04);

As you might have guessed, there's a type implementing system data specifically for resources. It's called Fetch (or FetchMut for write access).

So we can now rewrite our system:

use specs::{Fetch, ReadStorage, System, WriteStorage};

struct UpdatePos;

impl<'a> System<'a> for UpdatePos {
    type SystemData = (Fetch<'a, DeltaTime>,
                       ReadStorage<'a, Velocity>,
                       WriteStorage<'a, Position>);

    fn run(&mut self, data: Self::SystemData) {
        let (delta, vel, mut pos) = data;

        // `Fetch` implements `Deref`, so it
        // coerces to `&DeltaTime`.
        let delta = delta.0;

        for (vel, pos) in (&vel, &mut pos).join() {
            pos.x += vel.x * delta;
            pos.y += vel.y * delta;
        }
    }
}

Note that all resources that a system accesses must be registered with world.add_resource(resource) before that system is run, or you will get a panic.

For more information on SystemData, see the system data chapter.

In the next chapter, you will learn about the different storages and when to use which one.