Rust unstable book: basic desc and example for conservative_impl_trait.

This commit is contained in:
Corey Farwell 2017-03-11 17:34:41 -05:00
parent e06c51553d
commit 327e8e9196

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@ -6,5 +6,61 @@ The tracking issue for this feature is: [#34511]
------------------------
The `conservative_impl_trait` feature allows a conservative form of abstract
return types.
Abstract return types allow a function to hide a concrete return type behind a
trait interface similar to trait objects, while still generating the same
statically dispatched code as with concrete types.
## Examples
```rust
#![feature(conservative_impl_trait)]
fn even_iter() -> impl Iterator<Item=u32> {
(0..).map(|n| n * 2)
}
fn main() {
let first_four_even_numbers = even_iter().take(4).collect::<Vec<_>>();
assert_eq!(first_four_even_numbers, vec![0, 2, 4, 6]);
}
```
## Background
In today's Rust, you can write function signatures like:
````rust,ignore
fn consume_iter_static<I: Iterator<u8>>(iter: I) { }
fn consume_iter_dynamic(iter: Box<Iterator<u8>>) { }
````
In both cases, the function does not depend on the exact type of the argument.
The type held is "abstract", and is assumed only to satisfy a trait bound.
* In the `_static` version using generics, each use of the function is
specialized to a concrete, statically-known type, giving static dispatch,
inline layout, and other performance wins.
* In the `_dynamic` version using trait objects, the concrete argument type is
only known at runtime using a vtable.
On the other hand, while you can write:
````rust,ignore
fn produce_iter_dynamic() -> Box<Iterator<u8>> { }
````
...but you _cannot_ write something like:
````rust,ignore
fn produce_iter_static() -> Iterator<u8> { }
````
That is, in today's Rust, abstract return types can only be written using trait
objects, which can be a significant performance penalty. This RFC proposes
"unboxed abstract types" as a way of achieving signatures like
`produce_iter_static`. Like generics, unboxed abstract types guarantee static
dispatch and inline data layout.