::nougat

Use (lifetime-)GATs on stable rust.

Example

#![forbid(unsafe_code)]
# use ::core::convert::TryInto;

#[macro_use]
extern crate nougat;

#[gat]
trait LendingIterator {
    type Item<'next>
    where
        Self : 'next,
    ;

    fn next(&mut self)
      -> Option<Self::Item<'_>>
    ;
}

struct WindowsMut<Slice, const SIZE: usize> {
    slice: Slice,
    start: usize,
}

#[gat]
impl<'iter, Item, const SIZE: usize>
    LendingIterator
for
    WindowsMut<&'iter mut [Item], SIZE>
{
    type Item<'next>
    where
        Self : 'next,
    =
        &'next mut [Item; SIZE]
    ;

    /// For reference, the signature of `.array_chunks_mut::<SIZE>()`'s
    /// implementation of `Iterator::next()` would be:
    /** ```rust ,ignore
    fn next<'next> (
        self: &'next mut AChunksMut<&'iter mut [Item], SIZE>,
    ) -> Option<&'iter mut [Item; SIZE]> // <- no `'next` nor "lending-ness"! ``` */
    fn next<'next> (
        self: &'next mut WindowsMut<&'iter mut [Item], SIZE>,
    ) -> Option<&'next mut [Item; SIZE]> // <- `'next` instead of `'iter`: lending!
    {
        let to_yield =
            self.slice
                .get_mut(self.start ..)?
                .get_mut(.. SIZE)?
                .try_into() // `&mut [Item]` -> `&mut [Item; SIZE]`
                .expect("slice has the right SIZE")
        ;
        self.start += 1;
        Some(to_yield)
    }
}

fn main() {
    let mut array = [0, 1, 2, 3, 4];
    let slice = &mut array[..];
    // Cumulative sums pattern:
    let mut windows_iter = WindowsMut::<_, 2> { slice, start: 0 };
    while let Some(item) = windows_iter.next() {
        let [fst, ref mut snd] = *item;
        *snd += fst;
    }
    assert_eq!(
        array,
        [0, 1, 3, 6, 10],
    );
}

Debugging / tracing the macro expansions

You can make the macros go through intermediary generated files so as to get well-spanned error messages and files which you can open and inspect yourself, with the remaining macro non-expanded for readability, by:

1. enabling the debug-macros Cargo feature of this dependency:

   [dependencies]
   ## …
   nougat.version = "…"
   nougat.features = ["debug-macros"]  # <- ADD THIS

2. Setting the DEBUG_MACROS_LOCATION env var to some absolute path where the macros will write the so-generated files.

Demo

How does the macro work?

Limitations

• Only lifetime GATs are supported (no type Assoc<T> nor type Assoc<const …>).

• The code generated by the macro is currently not dyn-friendly at all. This will likely be improved in the future; potentially using another desugaring for the implementation.

• In order to refer to GATs outside of #[gat]-annotated items using Gat! is needed.

• Adding trait bounds to GATs in functions breaks type inference for that function (thanks to Discord user Globi for identifying and reporting this)