I started to use clippy as a linter. Sometimes, it shows this warning:
writing `&Vec<_>` instead of `&[_]` involves one more reference and cannot be
used with non-Vec-based slices. Consider changing the type to `&[...]`,
#[warn(ptr_arg)] on by default
I changed the parameter to a slice but this adds boilerplate on the call side. For instance, the code was:
let names = args.arguments.iter().map(|arg| {
arg.name.clone()
}).collect();
function(&names);
but now it is:
let names = args.arguments.iter().map(|arg| {
arg.name.clone()
}).collect::<Vec<_>>();
function(&names);
otherwise, I get the following error:
error: the trait `core::marker::Sized` is not implemented for the type
`[collections::string::String]` [E0277]
So I wonder if there is a way to convert an Iterator to a slice or avoid having to specify the collected type in this specific case.
So I wonder if there is a way to convert an Iterator to a slice
There is not.
An iterator only provides one element at a time, whereas a slice is about getting several elements at a time. This is why you first need to collect all the elements yielded by the Iterator into a contiguous array (Vec) before being able to use a slice.
The first obvious answer is not to worry about the slight overhead, though personally I would prefer placing the type hint next to the variable (I find it more readable):
let names: Vec<_> = args.arguments.iter().map(|arg| {
arg.name.clone()
}).collect();
function(&names);
Another option would be for function to take an Iterator instead (and an iterator of references, at that):
let names = args.arguments.iter().map(|arg| &arg.name);
function(names);
After all, iterators are more general, and you can always "realize" the slice inside the function if you need to.
So I wonder if there is a way to convert an Iterator to a slice
There is. (in applicable cases)
Got here searching "rust iter to slice", for my use-case, there was a solution:
fn main() {
// example struct
#[derive(Debug)]
struct A(u8);
let list = vec![A(5), A(6), A(7)];
// list_ref passed into a function somewhere ...
let list_ref: &[A] = &list;
let mut iter = list_ref.iter();
// consume some ...
let _a5: Option<&A> = iter.next();
// now want to eg. return a slice of the rest
let slice: &[A] = iter.as_slice();
println!("{:?}", slice); // [A(6), A(7)]
}
That said, .as_slice is defined on an iter of an existing slice, so the previous answerer was correct in that if you've got, eg. a map iter, you would need to collect it first (so there is something to slice from).
docs: https://doc.rust-lang.org/std/slice/struct.Iter.html#method.as_slice
Related
I am new to rust from python and have used the functional style in python extensively.
What I am trying to do is to take in a string (slice) (or any iterable) and iterate with a reference to the current index and the next index. Here is my attempt:
fn main() {
// intentionally immutable, this should not change
let x = "this is a
multiline string
with more
then 3 lines.";
// initialize multiple (mutable) iterators over the slice
let mut lineiter = x.chars();
let mut afteriter = x.chars();
// to have some reason to do this
afteriter.skip(1);
// zip them together, comparing the current line with the next line
let mut zipped = lineiter.zip(afteriter);
for (char1, char2) in zipped {
println!("{:?} {:?}", char1, char2);
}
}
I think it should be possible to get different iterators that have different positions in the slice but are referring to the same parts of memory without having to copy the string, but the error I get is as follows:
error[E0382]: use of moved value: `afteriter`
--> /home/alex/Documents/projects/simple-game-solver/src/src.rs:15:35
|
10 | let afteriter = x.chars();
| --------- move occurs because `afteriter` has type `std::str::Chars<'_>`, which does not implement the `Copy` trait
11 | // to have some reason to do this
12 | afteriter.skip(1);
| --------- value moved here
...
15 | let mut zipped = lineiter.zip(afteriter);
| ^^^^^^^^^ value used here after move
I also get a warning telling me that zipped does not need to be mutable.
Is it possible to instantiate multiple iterators over a single variable and if so how can it be done?
Is it possible to instantiate multiple iterators over a single variable and if so how can it be done?
If you check the signature and documentation for Iterator::skip:
fn skip(self, n: usize) -> Skip<Self>
Creates an iterator that skips the first n elements.
After they have been consumed, the rest of the elements are yielded. Rather than overriding this method directly, instead override the nth method.
You can see that it takes self by value (consumes the input iterator) and returns a new iterator. This is not a method which consumes the first n elements of the iterator in-place, it's one which converts the existing iterator into one which skips the first n elements.
So instead of:
let mut afteriter = x.chars();
afteriter.skip(1);
you just write:
let mut afteriter = x.chars().skip(1);
I also get a warning telling me that zipped does not need to be mutable.
That's because Rust for loop uses the IntoIterator trait, which moves the iterable into the loop. It's not creating a mutable reference, it's just consuming whatever the RHS is.
Therefore it doesn't care what the mutability of the variable. You do need mut if you iterate explicitly, or if you call some other "terminal" method (e.g. nth or try_fold or all), or if you want to iterate on the mutable reference (that's mostly useful for collections though), but not to hand off iterators to some other combinator method, or to a for loop.
A for loop takes self, if you will. Just as for_each does in fact.
Thanks to #Stargateur for giving me the solution. The .skip(1) takes ownership of afteriter and returns ownership to a version without the first element. What was happening before was ownership was lost on the .skip and so the variable could not be mutated anymore (I am pretty sure)
Let's say I have a function with following signature:
fn validate(samples: &[(&str, &[Token])])
Where Token is a custom enum.
I would like to be able to write something along those lines:
let samples = vec![
("a string", &[Token::PLUS, Token::MINUS, Token::PLUS]),
("another string", &[Token::MUL]),
];
validate(&samples);
But code like this yields mismatched types compile error:
error: mismatched types:
expected `&[(&str, &[Token])]`,
found `&collections::vec::Vec<(&str, &[Token; 3])>`
Is it possible to somehow convert the version with static length (&[Token; 3]) to a static slice (&[Token])?
In other words, I would like to be able to specify a static slice in similar way I specify &str, as some kind of "slice literal".
Or I am doing it completely wrong?
EDIT:
In short, I would like to find a syntax that creates an array with static lifetime (or at least a lifetime that is as long as the samples vector's one), and returns slice of it.
Something similar to how strings work, where just typing "a string" gives me reference of type &'static str.
EDIT2:
#Pablo's answer provides pretty good solution to my particular problem, although it is not exactly what I have meant at first.
I guess that the exact thing I have in mind might not be possible, so I will just accept that one for now, unless something more in lines of my initial idea come around.
In short, I would like to find a syntax that creates an array with
static lifetime (or at least a lifetime that is as long as the samples
vector's one), and returns slice of it.
You’d want something like this:
fn sliced(array: [Token; 3]) -> &'static [Token] { unimplemented!() }
So you could use it like this in your example:
let samples: Vec<(&str, &[Token])> = vec![
("a string", sliced([Token::PLUS, Token::MINUS, Token::PLUS])),
// ...
But there are two problems with it. The first and most glaring is that you can’t get a static reference out of a function which doesn’t take in a static reference (in which case it would just return it).
Therefore, since you want a slice at least as long-lived as your array, either you declare a const/static slice (which requires also a const/static declaration of its array), or you declare the array with a let statement first, and then make the slice. (This is what is done at my first alternative, below.) If you create the array inside a use of vec!, together with its slice, the array end its life with vec!, rendering the slice invalid. As an illustration, consider this, which fails due to the same reason:
fn main() {
let slice;
{
let array: [u8; 3] = [1,2,3];
slice = &array;
}
}
The second problem with the sliced function is that its input array has a fixed size, and you’d want to work generically over arrays of arbitrary size. However, this is currently not supported by Rust[1]. You have to work with slices in order to deal with arrays of arbitrary size.
One possibility, then, is to do the following [playpen]:
enum Token {
PLUS,
MINUS,
MUL,
}
fn validate(samples: &[(&str, &[Token])]) {
unimplemented!()
}
fn main() {
let tokens_0 = [Token::PLUS, Token::MINUS, Token::PLUS];
let tokens_1 = [Token::MUL];
let samples: Vec<(&str, &[Token])> = vec![
("a string", &tokens_0),
("another string", &tokens_1),
];
validate(&samples);
}
There are two changes here with respect to your code.
One, this code relies on implicit coercing of an array ([T; N]) as a slice (&[T]) by taking a reference to it. This is demanded by the declaration of samples as being of type Vec<(&str, &[Token])>. This is later satisfied, when using vec!, by passing references to the arrays, and thus eliciting the appropriate coercions.
Two, it creates the arrays of Token before using the vec! macro, which guarantees that they’ll live enough to be referenced from within the Vec it creates, keeping these references valid after vec! is done. This is necessary after resolving the previous type mismatch.
Addendum:
Or, for convenience, you may prefer to use a Vec instead of slices. Consider the following alternative [playpen]:
enum Token {
PLUS,
MINUS,
MUL,
}
fn validate<T>(samples: &[(&str, T)]) where
T: AsRef<[Token]>
{
let _: &[Token] = samples[0].1.as_ref();
unimplemented!()
}
fn main() {
let samples: Vec<(&str, Vec<Token>)> = vec![
("a string", vec![Token::PLUS, Token::MINUS, Token::PLUS]),
("another string", vec![Token::MUL]),
];
validate(&samples);
}
In this case, the AsRef<[Token]> bound on the second element of the tuple accepts any type from which you may take a &[Token], offering an as_ref() method which returns the expected reference. Vec<Token> is an example of such kind of type.
[1] “Rust does not currently support generics over the size of an array type.” [source]
Note: this answer is not valid in this particular situation because the arrays pointed by the nested slices cannot outlive the vector because they are only allocated for the duration of their respective expressions, therefore slices to them can't be stored in the vector.
The proper way would be to either hoist slices to the upper level and put them before the vector, or to use an entirely different structure, e.g. nested Vecs. Examples of all of these are provided in Pablo's answer.
You need to do this:
let samples = vec![
("a string", &[Token::PLUS, Token::MINUS, Token::PLUS] as &[_]),
("another string", &[Token::MUL] as &[_]),
];
validate(&samples);
Rust automatically converts references to arrays (&[T; n]) to slices (&[T]) when the target type is known, but in this case type inference doesn't work well because of the necessary deref coercion, so the compiler can't deduce that you need a slice instead of array and can't insert the appropriate conversion, thus you need to specify the type explicitly.
Also, there is no such thing as "static slice". The closest entity would be a slice with static lifetime, &'static [T], but as far as I remember, this is not the case of it.
I have been playing with Rust by porting my Score4 AI engine to it - basing the work on my functional-style implementation in OCaml. I specifically wanted to see how Rust fares with functional-style code.
The end result: It works, and it's very fast - much faster than OCaml. It almost touches the speed of imperative-style C/C++ - which is really cool.
There's a thing that troubles me, though — why do I need two ampersands in the last line of this code?
let moves_and_scores: Vec<_> = moves_and_boards
.iter()
.map(|&(column,board)| (column, score_board(&board)))
.collect();
let target_score = if maximize_or_minimize {
ORANGE_WINS
} else {
YELLOW_WINS
};
if let Some(killer_move) = moves_and_scores.iter()
.find(|& &(_,score)| score==target_score) {
...
I added them is because the compiler errors "guided" me to it; but I am trying to understand why... I used the trick mentioned elsewhere in Stack Overflow to "ask" the compiler to tell me what type something is:
let moves_and_scores: Vec<_> = moves_and_boards
.iter()
.map(|&(column,board)| (column, score_board(&board)))
.collect();
let () = moves_and_scores;
...which caused this error:
src/main.rs:108:9: 108:11 error: mismatched types:
expected `collections::vec::Vec<(u32, i32)>`,
found `()`
(expected struct `collections::vec::Vec`,
found ()) [E0308]
src/main.rs:108 let () = moves_and_scores;
...as I expected, moves_and_scores is a vector of tuples: Vec<(u32, i32)>. But then, in the immediate next line, iter() and find() force me to use the hideous double ampersands in the closure parameter:
if let Some(killer_move) = moves_and_scores.iter()
.find(|& &(_,score)| score==target_score) {
Why does the find closure need two ampersands? I could see why it may need one (pass the tuple by reference to save time/space) but why two? Is it because of the iter? That is, is the iter creating references, and then find expects a reference on each input, so a reference on a reference?
If this is so, isn't this, arguably, a rather ugly design flaw in Rust?
In fact, I would expect find and map and all the rest of the functional primitives to be parts of the collections themselves. Forcing me to iter() to do any kind of functional-style work seems burdensome, and even more so if it forces this kind of "double ampersands" in every possible functional chain.
I am hoping I am missing something obvious - any help/clarification most welcome.
This here
moves_and_scores.iter()
gives you an iterator over borrowed vector elements. If you follow the API doc what type this is, you'll notice that it's just the iterator for a borrowed slice and this implements Iterator with Item=&T where T is (u32, i32) in your case.
Then, you use find which takes a predicate which takes a &Item as parameter. Sice Item already is a reference in your case, the predicate has to take a &&(u32, i32).
pub trait Iterator {
...
fn find<P>(&mut self, predicate: P) -> Option<Self::Item>
where P: FnMut(&Self::Item) -> bool {...}
... ^
It was probably defined like this because it's only supposed to inspect the item and return a bool. This does not require the item being passed by value.
If you want an iterator over (u32, i32) you could write
moves_and_scores.iter().cloned()
cloned() converts the iterator from one with an Item type &T to one with an Item type T if T is Clone. Another way to do it would be to use into_iter() instead of iter().
moves_and_scores.into_iter()
The difference between the two is that the first option clones the borrowed elements while the 2nd one consumes the vector and moves the elements out of it.
By writing the lambda like this
|&&(_, score)| score == target_score
you destructure the "double reference" and create a local copy of the i32. This is allowed since i32 is a simple type that is Copy.
Instead of destructuring the parameter of your predicate you could also write
|move_and_score| move_and_score.1 == target_score
because the dot operator automatically dereferences as many times as needed.
I can convert Vec<String> to Vec<&str> this way:
let mut items = Vec::<&str>::new();
for item in &another_items {
items.push(item);
}
Are there better alternatives?
There are quite a few ways to do it, some have disadvantages, others simply are more readable to some people.
This dereferences s (which is of type &String) to a String "right hand side reference", which is then dereferenced through the Deref trait to a str "right hand side reference" and then turned back into a &str. This is something that is very commonly seen in the compiler, and I therefor consider it idiomatic.
let v2: Vec<&str> = v.iter().map(|s| &**s).collect();
Here the deref function of the Deref trait is passed to the map function. It's pretty neat but requires useing the trait or giving the full path.
let v3: Vec<&str> = v.iter().map(std::ops::Deref::deref).collect();
This uses coercion syntax.
let v4: Vec<&str> = v.iter().map(|s| s as &str).collect();
This takes a RangeFull slice of the String (just a slice into the entire String) and takes a reference to it. It's ugly in my opinion.
let v5: Vec<&str> = v.iter().map(|s| &s[..]).collect();
This is uses coercions to convert a &String into a &str. Can also be replaced by a s: &str expression in the future.
let v6: Vec<&str> = v.iter().map(|s| { let s: &str = s; s }).collect();
The following (thanks #huon-dbaupp) uses the AsRef trait, which solely exists to map from owned types to their respective borrowed type. There's two ways to use it, and again, prettiness of either version is entirely subjective.
let v7: Vec<&str> = v.iter().map(|s| s.as_ref()).collect();
and
let v8: Vec<&str> = v.iter().map(AsRef::as_ref).collect();
My bottom line is use the v8 solution since it most explicitly expresses what you want.
The other answers simply work. I just want to point out that if you are trying to convert the Vec<String> into a Vec<&str> only to pass it to a function taking Vec<&str> as argument, consider revising the function signature as:
fn my_func<T: AsRef<str>>(list: &[T]) { ... }
instead of:
fn my_func(list: &Vec<&str>) { ... }
As pointed out by this question: Function taking both owned and non-owned string collections. In this way both vectors simply work without the need of conversions.
All of the answers idiomatically use iterators and collecting instead of a loop, but do not explain why this is better.
In your loop, you first create an empty vector and then push into it. Rust makes no guarantees about the strategy it uses for growing factors, but I believe the current strategy is that whenever the capacity is exceeded, the vector capacity is doubled. If the original vector had a length of 20, that would be one allocation, and 5 reallocations.
Iterating from a vector produces an iterator that has a "size hint". In this case, the iterator implements ExactSizeIterator so it knows exactly how many elements it will return. map retains this and collect takes advantage of this by allocating enough space in one go for an ExactSizeIterator.
You can also manually do this with:
let mut items = Vec::<&str>::with_capacity(another_items.len());
for item in &another_items {
items.push(item);
}
Heap allocations and reallocations are probably the most expensive part of this entire thing by far; far more expensive than taking references or writing or pushing to a vector when no new heap allocation is involved. It wouldn't surprise me if pushing a thousand elements onto a vector allocated for that length in one go were faster than pushing 5 elements that required 2 reallocations and one allocation in the process.
Another unsung advantage is that using the methods with collect do not store in a mutable variable which one should not use if it's unneeded.
another_items.iter().map(|item| item.deref()).collect::<Vec<&str>>()
To use deref() you must add using use std::ops::Deref
This one uses collect:
let strs: Vec<&str> = another_items.iter().map(|s| s as &str).collect();
Here is another option:
use std::iter::FromIterator;
let v = Vec::from_iter(v.iter().map(String::as_str));
Note that String::as_str is stable since Rust 1.7.
I'm starting to learn Rust and I tried to implement a function to reverse a vector of strings. I found a solution but I don't understand why it works.
This works:
fn reverse_strings(strings:Vec<&str>) -> Vec<&str> {
let actual: Vec<_> = strings.iter().cloned().rev().collect();
return actual;
}
But this doesn't.
fn reverse_strings(strings:Vec<&str>) -> Vec<&str> {
let actual: Vec<_> = strings.iter().rev().collect(); // without clone
return actual;
}
Error message
src/main.rs:28:10: 28:16 error: mismatched types:
expected `collections::vec::Vec<&str>`,
found `collections::vec::Vec<&&str>`
(expected str,
found &-ptr) [E0308]
Can someone explain to me why? What happens in the second function? Thanks!
So the call to .cloned() is essentially like doing .map(|i| i.clone()) in the same position (i.e. you can replace the former with the latter).
The thing is that when you call iter(), you're iterating/operating on references to the items being iterated. Notice that the vector already consists of 'references', specifically string slices.
So to zoom in a bit, let's replace cloned() with the equivalent map() that I mentioned above, for pedagogical purposes, since they are equivalent. This is what it actually looks like:
.map(|i: & &str| i.clone())
So notice that that's a reference to a reference (slice), because like I said, iter() operates on references to the items, not the items themselves. So since a single element in the vector being iterated is of type &str, then we're actually getting a reference to that, i.e. & &str. By calling clone() on each of these items, we go from a & &str to a &str, just like calling .clone() on a &i64 would result in an i64.
So to bring everything together, iter() iterates over references to the elements. So if you create a new vector from the collected items yielded by the iterator you construct (which you constructed by calling iter()) you would get a vector of references to references, that is:
let actual: Vec<& &str> = strings.iter().rev().collect();
So first of all realize that this is not the same as the type you're saying the function returns, Vec<&str>. More fundamentally, however, the lifetimes of these references would be local to the function, so even if you changed the return type to Vec<& &str> you would get a lifetime error.
Something else you could do, however, is to use the into_iter() method. This method actually does iterate over each element, not a reference to it. However, this means that the elements are moved from the original iterator/container. This is only possible in your situation because you're passing the vector by value, so you're allowed to move elements out of it.
fn reverse_strings(strings:Vec<&str>) -> Vec<&str> {
let actual: Vec<_> = strings.into_iter().rev().collect();
return actual;
}
playpen
This probably makes a bit more sense than cloning, since we are passed the vector by value, we're allowed to do anything with the elements, including moving them to a different location (in this case the new, reversed vector). And even if we don't, the vector will be dropped at the end of that function anyways, so we might as well. Cloning would be more appropriate if we're not allowed to do that (e.g. if we were passed the vector by reference, or a slice instead of a vector more likely).