Hey there, I’m currently learning Rust (coming from object-oriented and also to some degree functional languages like Kotlin) and have some trouble how to design my software in a Rust-like way. I’m hoping someone could help me out with an explanation here :-)

I just started reading the book in order to get an overview of the language as well.

In OOP languages, I frequently use design patterns such as the Strategy pattern to model interchangeable pieces of logic.

How do I model this in Rust?

My current approach would be to define a trait and write different implementations of it. I would then pass around a boxed trait object (Box<dyn MyTrait>). I often find myself trying to combine this with some poor man’s manual dependency injection.

This approach feels very object oriented and not native to the language. Would this be the recommended way of doing things or is there a better approach to take in Rust?

Thanks in advance!

18 points

I agree with the other suggestions so far, to wit:

1.dyn is fine, when you need it. People will give you a lot of guff about performance but vtable lookup on a dyn is no less performant than the same thing in C++ (in higher level languages almost every call is dynamically dispatched and those are used for plenty of serious, performant work).

  1. Use enums more.

  2. Use traits and generic functions

And I would add a couple of other thoughts.

For some DI type work, you can use cargo’s Features to define custom build flags. You can then put variants on the same code (usually implementing a trait) in different modules and use conditional compilation on the Features to swap out which code is used. This is like a compile-time strategy pattern. I use it for testing, but also to swap out databases (using a local in-memory to test and a real one in prod) and to swap out graphical backends on my roguelike (compiles to OpenGL on windows but Metal on my Mac).

You’ll probably want to learn Rust’s macro system sooner than later as well. Sometimes a macro is better than a function when you need to generically operate over several types (function argument overloading, in other languages) or work on something in a general but well-structured way (tree walking for example).

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5 points

Thanks for your input! I’ll have a look at both build flags and macros for sure! For my specific problem enums will do just fine I guess, but having an overview about the possibilities helps a lot!

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11 points

Traits like std::io::Write are essentially Strategy pattern. Take a look at how that’s used. You’re doing it mostly how I would, except for the Box<dyn T>. Generally it’s preferred to use generic functions/types in Rust instead of dynamic dispatch, i.e. have a fn do_something<T: MyTrait>(imp: T) instead of a fn do_something(imp: &dyn MyTrait).

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6 points

Thanks for the advice! I didn’t know generic functions were preferred. But it makes perfect sense if you think about it.

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9 points

For a direct replacement, you might want to consider enums, for something like

enum Strategy {
    Foo,
    Bar,
}

That’s going to be a lot more ergonomic than shuffling trait objects around, you can do stuff like:

fn execute(strategy: Strategy) {
    match strategy {
        Strategy::Foo => { ... }
        Strategy::Bar => { ... }
}

If you have known set of strategy that isn’t extensible, enums are good. If you want the ability for third party code to add new strategies, the boxed trait object approach works. Consider also the simplest approach of just having functions like this:

fn execute_foo() { ... }
fn execute_bar() { ... }

Sometimes, Rust encourages not trying to be too clever, like having get vs get_mut and not trying to abstract over the mutability.

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2 points

Thanks for the explanation! I think just using an enum will do perfectly well in my case.

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2 points

To expand on why generics are preferred, just in case you haven’t seen these points yet: the performance downsides of Box<dyn MyTrait> are,

  • methods use dynamic dispatch in this case
  • requires heap allocation

There is also a possible type theory objection which is that normally there is a distinction between types and traits. Traits are not types themselves, but instead define sets of types with shared behavior. (That’s why the same feature in Haskell is called a “type class”, because it defines a class of types that have something in common.) But dyn turns a trait into a type which undermines the type/trait distinction. It’s useful enough to justify being in the language, but a little unsettling from a certain perspective.

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3 points

That makes sense, thanks again! I think dynamic dispatch is not as much of a performance issue in my case, yet you’re totally right not to waste resources that aren’t actually needed. Keeping things on the stack if possible is also a good thing.

I’ll definitely need to read more about Rusts type system but your explanation was already very helpful! I think this might be why my initial approach felt unnatural - it works but is quite cumbersome and with generics there seems to be a more elegant approach.

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8 points

There’s nothing wrong with using dyn if the problem calls for it. In most cases it’s more idiomatic to use an enum to represent something like a strategy, but if your strategies are complicated entities in themselves, a trait is probably the right approach.

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1 point

Thanks for your reply!

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6 points

I spent like a week on this last month. Usually you use enumeration, but I wanted to allow client code to define their own strategies. I tried the Box<dyn MyTrait> pattern because some of my strategies were composed of other strategies, and I wanted to clamp down on generic types. But I kept running into weirder and weirder compiler errors. Always asking for an additional restriction on the base trait. X, must be Copy, must be Send, must be Sized, must be 'static. On and on. My experience is if I’m getting a bunch of those then I’m off the Golden Path. So I just embraced the verbosity of using generics and its easy. Yes its more code but its better code.

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3 points

Always asking for an additional restriction on the base trait.

Some of these restrictions are reasonable, some you need to avoid. Without dyn the compiler just figures out whether those properties are congruent, with dyn you need to choose those properties explicitly.

must be Copy, must be Send, must be Sized, must be 'static

  • Send is typically reasonable and typically can be just added to the list.
  • Sized - not sure. Idea of dyn things typically relies on unsized things (and Box and friends to get back to the Sized world).
  • 'static - if you are OK at allocating here and there (i.e. not optimising for performance hard), limiting to 'static world (i.e. without other lifetimes and inner references) can be reasonable.
  • Sync is needed rarely, usually Send is enough.
  • Copy bound is typically too much, unless the data is very simple. Probably you need a .clone() and/or Arc somewhere.
  • Unpin can also be just added as needed, unless you are dealing with async and optimising allocations.

On and on.

The list of things that can be added in ... part of dyn Trait + ... is finite, so this “on and on” won’t go forever. So after some time the trait definition and main consumers are expected to stabilise.

I’m off the Golden Path

dyn road is indeed a thinner and somewhat winding road compared to main, easy way of 'static + Sized things. But when it is really necessary (i.e. you need dynamically construct the strategies from parts, or you need to attach more strategies from plugins, or you want to avoid big bloated executables), there is little way around it.

So I just embraced the verbosity of using generics and its easy. Yes its more code but its better code.

If it works without dyn then probably it’s OK to leave it that way.

Each of those dyn, async, impl<'a>, Pin, unsafe, macro_rules! things bump Rust experience a step right on Easy-Normal-Hard-Nightmare scale.

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