Rustlings Topic: Generics

in Study Log on Rust, Rustlings

Generics is the topic of generalizing types and functionalities to broader cases. This is extremely useful for reducing code duplication in many ways, but can call for rather involving syntax. Namely, being generic requires taking great care to specify over which types a generic type is actually considered valid. The simplest and most common use of generics is for type parameters.

You may find solution code for the topic from my repo.

  1. generics1.rs
  2. generics2.rs
  3. generics3.rs

generics1.rs

Vectors in rust make use of generics to create dynamically sized arrays of any type. You need to tell the compiler what type we are pushing onto this vector.

We need to use &str to accept items like "milk".

/* file: "exercises/generics/generics1.rs" */
fn main() {
    let mut shopping_list: Vec<&str> = Vec::new();
    shopping_list.push("milk");
}

generics2.rs

Using generic types in method definition is not that complicated. We usually use one letter (most preferably T) for a generic type.

Note that we have to declare T just after impl so we can use it to specify that we’re implementing methods on the type Point<T>. By declaring T as a generic type after impl, Rust can identify that the type in the angle brackets in Point is a generic type rather than a concrete type.

/* file: "exercises/generics/generics2.rs" */
struct Wrapper<T> {
    value: T,
}

impl<T> Wrapper<T> {
    pub fn new(value: T) -> Self {
        Wrapper { value }
    }
}

#[cfg(test)]
mod tests {
    use super::*;

    #[test]
    fn store_u32_in_wrapper() {
        assert_eq!(Wrapper::new(42).value, 42);
    }

    #[test]
    fn store_str_in_wrapper() {
        assert_eq!(Wrapper::new("Foo").value, "Foo");
    }
}

generics3.rs

When working with generics, the type parameters often must use traits as bounds to stipulate what functionality a type implements. For example, the following example uses the trait Display to print and so it requires T to be bound by Display; that is, T must implement Display.

To me, Rust’s bounds felt like a new concept, yet a very powerful tool. Bounding restricts the generic to types that conform to the bounds. So we can assume the generic type can perform based on the bounding traits. And we have to implement a trait for the types that we want to be used as a generic type.

The one thing you have to keep in mind is that you have to know common Traits that Rust provides. This blog post gives you a tour of the most common Traits that you will see.

let’s get back to the exercise, we want to print the ReportCard. This can be done by trait Display. String & u8 already implements Display. But grade, is generic type variable. So we want to enforce that generic type to implement the trait Display.

pub struct ReportCard<T: std::fmt::Display> {
    pub grade: T,
    pub student_name: String,
    pub student_age: u8,
}

By using <T: std::fmt::Display>, we are telling the compiler that I will accept any kind of type as T as long as it implements trait Display. Sounds good!

Now grade can be displayed as we want. We can use format! macro to print ReportCard.

impl<T: std::fmt::Display> ReportCard<T> {
    pub fn print(&self) -> String {
        format!(
            "{} ({}) - achieved a grade of {}",
            &self.student_name, &self.student_age, &self.grade
        )
    }
}

After all modification, the whole code looks like follow:

/* file: "exercises/generics/generics3.rs" */
pub struct ReportCard<T: std::fmt::Display> {
    pub grade: T,
    pub student_name: String,
    pub student_age: u8,
}

impl<T: std::fmt::Display> ReportCard<T> {
    pub fn print(&self) -> String {
        format!(
            "{} ({}) - achieved a grade of {}",
            &self.student_name, &self.student_age, &self.grade
        )
    }
}

#[cfg(test)]
mod tests {
    use super::*;

    #[test]
    fn generate_numeric_report_card() {
        let report_card = ReportCard {
            grade: 2.1,
            student_name: "Tom Wriggle".to_string(),
            student_age: 12,
        };
        assert_eq!(
            report_card.print(),
            "Tom Wriggle (12) - achieved a grade of 2.1"
        );
    }

    #[test]
    fn generate_alphabetic_report_card() {
        let report_card = ReportCard {
            grade: "A+",
            student_name: "Gary Plotter".to_string(),
            student_age: 11,
        };
        assert_eq!(
            report_card.print(),
            "Gary Plotter (11) - achieved a grade of A+"
        );
    }
}

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