actix web lifetime in web::Data - rust

I am trying to work with Data in acitx web, but it wont work with a defined lifetime. Why am i getting this error and how do i fix it? implicit elided lifetime not allowed here assuming a 'static lifetime
#[get("/search/{query}/")]
async fn testing(search: Path<SearchIdentifier>,test: Data< Test >) -> Json<String> {...}
error[E0726]: implicit elided lifetime not allowed here
--> src/api/file.rs:86:62
|
86 | async fn testing(search: Path<SearchIdentifier>,test: Data< Test >) -> Json<String> {
| ^^^^^^- help: indicate the anonymous lifetime: `<'_>`
|
= note: assuming a `'static` lifetime...
pub struct Test<'a> {
test: Test<'a>,
}
impl<'a> Test<'a> {
pub fn new(conn: MysqlConnection) -> Self {
let test = Test { conn: &conn };
Self {test}
}

Test contains a lifetime - 'a. You omitted it. Usually, when you do that, the compiler uses the lifetime elision rules to figure out what the lifetime should be - in this case, for example, it would become:
fn testing<'a>(search: Path<SearchIdentifier>,test: Data<Test<'a>>) -> Json<String>
However, this is not a normal function. This is an async function. And async functions are not allowed to implicitly elide the lifetime - they have to explicitly elide it using '_, that is:
async fn testing(search: Path<SearchIdentifier>,test: Data<Test<'_>>) -> Json<String>
Or, of course, the fully-specified version with 'a.
The reason for that is that implicit lifetime elision on structs is considered a design mistake, because it does not allow you to reason easily about the lifetimes present in your function. In fact, I recommend putting at the crate root the following:
#![forbid(rust_2018_idioms)]
To (among other things) disallow that for any function, not just async.

Related

How does one restrict a lifetime to a closure environment in rust?

I am calling closures with a fold function inside another closure. While I am intending for nothing in this some_closure function to live outside the closure environment, I am receiving an error that I am dropping a value while it is still borrowed.
I have tried removing all lifetime specifiers from some_closure, because I find the compiler is much smarter than myself at figuring out lifetimes, but I'm also finding no success in this (the compiler will always ask for lifetime specifiers leading up to the point of the shown example).
What I would desire to do here is to specify a lifetime restricted to the length of the closure inside the function, rather than the function itself. But I have a feeling that what I think is the problem may not actually be my problem, and that there is some gap in my understanding of lifetimes in closures.
I've tried to minimize the example as much as possible:
struct HoldStr<'a>(&'a str);
fn clone_slice_borrows_into_vec<'a>() -> impl Fn(&[&'a HoldStr]) -> Vec<&'a HoldStr<'a>> {
|slice| {
let mut temp = vec![];
temp.clone_from_slice(slice);
temp
}
}
fn clone_slice_borrows_into_vec_same<'a>() -> impl Fn(&[&'a HoldStr]) -> Vec<&'a HoldStr<'a>> {
// Same as last function for the sake of example, but one can assume it does something else
}
fn some_closure<'a>() -> impl Fn() {
|| {
let my_vec = vec![HoldStr("one"), HoldStr("two")];
let my_vec_holding_borrow: Vec<&'a HoldStr> = my_vec.iter().collect();
let called_closures: [Box<dyn Fn(&[&'a HoldStr]) -> Vec<&'a HoldStr<'a>>>; 2] = [
Box::new(clone_slice_borrows_into_vec()),
Box::new(clone_slice_borrows_into_vec_same())
];
let _result = called_closures
.iter()
.fold(my_vec_holding_borrow, |acc, closure| closure(&acc));
}
}
I would expect everything to be dropped by the end of the closure inside some_closure and for this to be fine, especially since I am specifying that lifetime 'a does not relate to anything the function itself returns. But it seems that the borrowed value is expected to live until the end of the function itself. I get this error:
error[E0597]: `my_vec` does not live long enough
--> src/lib.rs:61:51
|
## | fn some_closure<'a>() -> impl Fn() {
| -- lifetime `'a` defined here
...
## | let my_vec_holding_borrow: Vec<&'a HoldStr> = my_vec.iter().collect();
| ---------------- ^^^^^^ borrowed value does not live long enough
| |
| type annotation requires that `my_vec` is borrowed for `'a`
...
## | }
| - `my_vec` dropped here while still borrowed
I'd be happy to hear anything from how to resolve the error, to that I've been going about this the wrong way in the first place.
You need higher-rank trait bounds for your closure types:
fn clone_slice_borrows_into_vec() -> impl for<'a> Fn(&[&'a HoldStr]) -> Vec<&'a HoldStr<'a>> {
...
(Full code in the playground)
The lifetime 'a isn't fixed for your closure. It should return a vector of references with lifetime 'a for any input slice with references of this lifetime. Your code used an externally fixed lifetime instead, which could be chosen by the caller of clone_slice_borrows_into_vec().
If you have a funciton definition like
fn foo<'a>() -> &'a Foo
then it's basically always a mistake. This lets the caller request an arbitrary lifetime, and the function promises to create a reference of this lifetime out of thin air, which is only possible if it gets static references from some global storage, in which case it should simply return &'static Foo.

Is there a way to pass a reference to a generic function and return an impl Trait that isn't related to the argument's lifetime?

I've worked down a real-life example in a web app, which I've solved using unnecessary heap allocation, to the following example:
// Try replacing with (_: &String)
fn make_debug<T>(_: T) -> impl std::fmt::Debug {
42u8
}
fn test() -> impl std::fmt::Debug {
let value = "value".to_string();
// try removing the ampersand to get this to compile
make_debug(&value)
}
pub fn main() {
println!("{:?}", test());
}
As is, compiling this code gives me:
error[E0597]: `value` does not live long enough
--> src/main.rs:9:16
|
5 | fn test() -> impl std::fmt::Debug {
| -------------------- opaque type requires that `value` is borrowed for `'static`
...
9 | make_debug(&value)
| ^^^^^^ borrowed value does not live long enough
10 | }
| - `value` dropped here while still borrowed
I can fix this error in at least two ways:
Instead of passing in a reference to value in test(), pass in value itself
Instead of the parameter T, explicitly state the type of the argument for make_debug as &String or &str
My understanding of what's happening is that, when there is a parameter, the borrow checker is assuming that any lifetime on that parameter affects the output impl Debug value.
Is there a way to keep the code parameterized, continue passing in a reference, and get the borrow checker to accept it?
I think this is due to the rules around how impl trait opaque types capture lifetimes.
If there are lifetimes inside an argument T, then an impl trait has to incorporate them. Additional lifetimes in the type signature follow the normal rules.
For more information please see:
https://github.com/rust-lang/rust/issues/43396#issuecomment-349716967
https://github.com/rust-lang/rfcs/blob/master/text/1951-expand-impl-trait.md#lifetime-parameters
https://github.com/rust-lang/rfcs/blob/master/text/1951-expand-impl-trait.md#assumption-3-there-should-be-an-explicit-marker-when-a-lifetime-could-be-embedded-in-a-return-type
https://github.com/rust-lang/rfcs/blob/master/text/1951-expand-impl-trait.md#scoping-for-type-and-lifetime-parameters
A more complete answer
Original goal: the send_form function takes an input parameter of type &T which is rendered to a binary representation. That binary representation is owned by the resulting impl Future, and no remnant of the original &T remains. Therefore, the lifetime of &T need not outlive the impl Trait. All good.
The problem arises when T itself, additionally, contains references with lifetimes. If we were not using impl Trait, our signature would look something like this:
fn send_form<T>(self, data: &T) -> SendFormFuture;
And by looking at SendFormFuture, we can readily observe that there is no remnant of T in there at all. Therefore, even if T has lifetimes of its own to deal with, we know that all references are used within the body of send_form, and never used again afterward by SendFormFuture.
However, with impl Future as the output, we get no such guarantees. There's no way to know if the concrete implementation of Future in fact holds onto the T.
In the case where T has no references, this still isn't a problem. Either the impl Future references the T, and fully takes ownership of it, or it doesn't reference it, and no lifetime issues arise.
However, if T does have references, you could end up in a situation where the concrete impl Future is holding onto a reference stored in the T. Even though the impl Future has ownership of the T itself, it doesn't have ownership of the values referenced by the T.
This is why the borrow check must be conservative, and insist that any references inside T must have a 'static lifetime.
The only workaround I can see is to bypass impl Future and be explicit in the return type. Then, you can demonstrate to the borrow checker quite easily that the output type does not reference the input T type at all, and any references in it are irrelevant.
The original code in the actix web client for send_form looks like:
https://docs.rs/awc/0.2.1/src/awc/request.rs.html#503-522
pub fn send_form<T: Serialize>(
self,
value: &T,
) -> impl Future<
Item = ClientResponse<impl Stream<Item = Bytes, Error = PayloadError>>,
Error = SendRequestError,
> {
let body = match serde_urlencoded::to_string(value) {
Ok(body) => body,
Err(e) => return Either::A(err(Error::from(e).into())),
};
// set content-type
let slf = self.set_header_if_none(
header::CONTENT_TYPE,
"application/x-www-form-urlencoded",
);
Either::B(slf.send_body(Body::Bytes(Bytes::from(body))))
}
You may need to patch the library or write your own function that does the same thing but with a concrete type. If anyone else knows how to deal with this apparent limitation of impl trait I'd love to hear it.
Here's how far I've gotten on a rewrite of send_form in awc (the actix-web client library):
pub fn send_form_alt<T: Serialize>(
self,
value: &T,
// ) -> impl Future<
// Item = ClientResponse<impl Stream<Item = Bytes, Error = PayloadError>>,
// Error = SendRequestError,
) -> Either<
FutureResult<String, actix_http::error::Error>,
impl Future<
Item = crate::response::ClientResponse<impl futures::stream::Stream>,
Error = SendRequestError,
>,
> {
Some caveats so far:
Either::B is necessarily an opaque impl trait of Future.
The first param of FutureResult might actually be Void or whatever the Void equivalent in Rust is called.

What does the Rust error code E0495 mean?

I'm using Rocket to make a web server and I'm trying to make a wrapper around the Responder trait so that my route methods can return any struct.
The code below does not compile because of an error about lifetimes that I don't fully understand. The error is not listed in the error index; it skips from E0492 to E0496.
Since this code uses Rocket, it requires the nightly compiler.
main.rs
#![feature(custom_attribute, proc_macro_hygiene, decl_macro)]
#[macro_use]
extern crate rocket;
extern crate rocket_contrib;
use rocket::{http::Status, response::Responder, Request};
use rocket_contrib::templates::Template;
fn main() {
rocket::Rocket::ignite().mount("/", routes![route]).launch();
}
#[get("/")]
fn route<'a>() -> DynamicResponder<'a> {
DynamicResponder::from(Template::render("template", ()))
}
struct DynamicResponder<'a> {
inner: Box<dyn Responder<'a> + 'a>,
}
impl<'r> DynamicResponder<'r> {
pub fn from<T: 'r>(responder: T) -> DynamicResponder<'r>
where
T: Responder<'r>,
{
DynamicResponder {
inner: Box::new(responder),
}
}
}
impl<'r> Responder<'r> for DynamicResponder<'r> {
fn respond_to<'b>(
self,
request: &'b Request,
) -> Result<rocket::response::Response<'r>, Status> {
self.inner.respond_to(request)
}
}
Cargo.toml
[package]
name = "rocketing_around"
version = "0.1.0"
[dependencies]
rocket = "0.4.0"
[dependencies.rocket_contrib]
version = "0.4.0"
default_features = false
features = [ "handlebars_templates" ]
Compiler message:
error[E0495]: cannot infer an appropriate lifetime for lifetime parameter `'r` due to conflicting requirements
--> src/main.rs:15:5
|
15 | DynamicResponder::from(Template::render("template", ()))
| ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
|
note: first, the lifetime cannot outlive the lifetime 'a as defined on the function body at 14:10...
--> src/main.rs:14:10
|
14 | fn route<'a>() -> DynamicResponder<'a> {
| ^^
= note: ...so that the expression is assignable:
expected DynamicResponder<'a>
found DynamicResponder<'_>
= note: but, the lifetime must be valid for the static lifetime...
= note: ...so that the types are compatible:
expected rocket::response::Responder<'_>
found rocket::response::Responder<'static>
What does the Rust error code E0495 mean?
The error code E0495 seems to be a catch-all for a variety of different situations where lifetime requirements can't be reconciled. The message already says that, and there are huge number of ways that you could write code where lifetimes don't match up properly, which is perhaps why it isn't listed with examples in the error index.
Type parameters, including lifetimes, are always determined by the caller. Looking at your particular example, a function signature like this:
fn route<'a>() -> DynamicResponder<'a> { ... }
means that, for any lifetime 'a chosen by the caller, references inside the returned DynamicResponder<'a> must be valid. But what could the references inside DynamicResponder<'a> even be in this situation? They can't be references to variables in the function body because those only live as long as the function. There are no arguments, so the only things that could be referenced by the DynamicResponder<'a> are things that live outside the function, i.e. statics.
You can fix the error by removing the lifetime variable and setting the lifetime parameter to the only lifetime that makes sense:
fn route() -> DynamicResponder<'static> { ... }

Higher Ranked Trait Bound and boxed closures lifetime issue

I am trying to write a function returning a boxed closure that can work on references to types with any
lifetime. When writing a specific instance, everything works fine. But when writing a generic
version, I run into lifetime problems.
struct Parameter<'a> {
s: &'a str,
}
fn main() {
let closure = generate_closure_gen();
let string = String::from("Hello World!");
let parameter = Parameter { s: &string }; // Error: string does not live long enough
closure(&parameter);
}
// This one works fine
// Desugared version for Box<Fn(&Parameter)>
fn generate_closure() -> Box<for <'a, 'r> Fn(&'r Parameter<'a>)> {
Box::new(|c: &Parameter| {})
}
// This one gives lifetime errors
fn generate_closure_gen<C>() -> Box<Fn(&C)> {
Box::new(|c: &C| {})
}
I don't see why the closure needs the type parameter to live longer than it (there is no storage or anything ...). And it works for the non-generic version with HRTB, it just feels like it should be possible to make it work with the generic version.
Also, if I try to write the specific version using the generic version, I get a type error
// Desugared version for Box<Fn(&Parameter)>
fn generate_closure_2() -> Box<for <'a, 'r> Fn(&'r Parameter<'a>)> {
generate_closure_gen()
}
src/main.rs:22:5: 22:27 error: mismatched types:
expected `Box<for<'r, 'r> core::ops::Fn(&'r Parameter<'r>) + 'static>`,
found `Box<for<'r> core::ops::Fn(&'r _) + 'static>`
(expected concrete lifetime,
found bound lifetime parameter ) [E0308]
src/main.rs:22 generate_closure_gen()
^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
src/main.rs:22:5: 22:27 help: run `rustc --explain E0308` to see a detailed explanation
Any idea on how to make this work?
(playpen link)
Type parameters have a lifetime bound. That lifetime bound is the shortest of all of the implementor's lifetime parameters. You omitted it on generate_closure_gen, so the compiler inferred it, but if we explicitly wrote it out, the function definition would look like this:
fn generate_closure_gen<'a, C: 'a>() -> Box<Fn(&C)> {
Box::new(|c: &C| {})
}
Making this change doesn't solve our problem, though.
To understand why, we need to figure out what C is inferred to be. You call the closure with a &'y Parameter<'x>, and the closure accepts for<'b> &'b C, so C is Parameter<'x>. Parameter<'x> has a lifetime parameter, which will have an influence on the lifetime bound on C.
Lifetime parameters in generic functions must be substituted with lifetimes that start before the function call. In this case, this means that the lifetime of any C we pass to the closure must be valid before the call to generate_closure_gen. That's because C is bound to a specific lifetime, not to any lifetime; i.e. when C is Parameter<'x>, the 'x must be known in advance; we can't have a different 'x each time we call the closure. In other words, what you'd like to have is something like this:
fn generate_closure_gen<C: for<'a> 'a>() -> Box<Fn(&C)> {
Box::new(|c| {})
}
But unfortunately, that isn't legal as of Rust 1.7.

When do I need to specify explicit lifetimes in Rust?

If I have the two functions
// implicit
fn foo(x: &i32) {
}
// explicit
fn bar<'a>(x: &'a i32) {
}
When would foo return an error and bar be the correct function header? I'm confused as to why I would explicitly declare a lifetime:
The 'a reads ‘the lifetime a’. Technically, every reference has some
lifetime associated with it, but the compiler lets you elide them in
common cases.
I understand what a lifetime is, but what does explicitly specifying a lifetime 'a do for me? For reference I'm using the Rust book as reading material
Practically speaking, the #1 reason you'll have to write lifetime annotations is because the compiler asks you so. It will reject function signatures which are not covered by lifetime elision rules.
I assume you would like an simple example where lifetimes are mandatory. Imagine the following scenario:
struct Blah<'a> {
hoy: &'a u8
}
fn want_a_hoy(blah: &Blah) -> &u8 {
blah.hoy
}
The intention is obvious, but the compiler doesn't handle it:
<anon>:7:35: 7:38 error: missing lifetime specifier [E0106]
<anon>:7 fn want_a_hoy(blah: &Blah) -> &u8 {
^~~
<anon>:7:35: 7:38 help: see the detailed explanation for E0106
<anon>:7:35: 7:38 help: this function's return type contains a borrowed value, but
the signature does not say which one of `blah`'s 2 elided
lifetimes it is borrowed from
In this case, annotations solve the problem:
fn want_a_hoy<'a, 'b>(blah: &'b Blah<'a>) -> &'a u8 {
blah.hoy
}
Here you're specifying 'a twice (on Blah<'a> and &'a). This is the same lifetime! So what you're saying to the compiler here is: "This function takes a reference to a blah containing an inner reference. I will return something which lives exactly as long as the inner reference of the blah." In this case, the signature gives a strong hint that you're likely to return something coming from the innards of the blah.

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