IntoIterator
The Iterator
trait tells you how to iterate once you have created an iterator. The related trait IntoIterator
defines how to create an iterator for a type. It is used automatically by the for
loop.
struct Grid { x_coords: Vec<u32>, y_coords: Vec<u32>, } impl IntoIterator for Grid { type Item = (u32, u32); type IntoIter = GridIter; fn into_iter(self) -> GridIter { GridIter { grid: self, i: 0, j: 0 } } } struct GridIter { grid: Grid, i: usize, j: usize, } impl Iterator for GridIter { type Item = (u32, u32); fn next(&mut self) -> Option<(u32, u32)> { if self.i >= self.grid.x_coords.len() { self.i = 0; self.j += 1; if self.j >= self.grid.y_coords.len() { return None; } } let res = Some((self.grid.x_coords[self.i], self.grid.y_coords[self.j])); self.i += 1; res } } fn main() { let grid = Grid { x_coords: vec![3, 5, 7, 9], y_coords: vec![10, 20, 30, 40] }; for (x, y) in grid { println!("point = {x}, {y}"); } }
Click through to the docs for IntoIterator
. Every implementation of IntoIterator
must declare two types:
Item
: the type to iterate over, such asi8
,IntoIter
: theIterator
type returned by theinto_iter
method.
Note that IntoIter
and Item
are linked: the iterator must have the same Item
type, which means that it returns Option<Item>
The example iterates over all combinations of x and y coordinates.
Try iterating over the grid twice in main
. Why does this fail? Note that IntoIterator::into_iter
takes ownership of self
.
Fix this issue by implementing IntoIterator
for &Grid
and storing a reference to the Grid
in GridIter
.
The same problem can occur for standard library types: for e in some_vector
will take ownership of some_vector
and iterate over owned elements from that vector. Use for e in &some_vector
instead, to iterate over references to elements of some_vector
.