Rust does that with the combination of "sum types" (aka "enums with data") and pattern matching. An `Option<T>` is either `Some(T)` or `None`. Matching on an option with the pattern `Some(value)` creates a new syntactic scope where the value is accessible. This scope is only entered if the `Option` is actually non-empty.
All ways of getting the value from the option are ultimately shorthand for a match in that way. For example, option.unwrap() will either get the value if it there, or panic. Option.unwrap_or(x) will either get the value of it there, or use x instead.
In practice this is x100 less error prone than C++. Source: was burned by vector.front() on empty vectors more than once. In C++, UB. In rust, usually the "empty case" is considered when first writing the code, or at least caught during review (unwraps tend to be very visible in reviews)