I want to read a line from a TCPStream
, write another line to it, and then repeat. The issue is that BufReader::new
takes ownership of my TCPStream
variable:
let stream = ...; // TCPStream
let reader = BufReader::new(stream); // moved its value
// can't use stream here anymore
What is a simple solution to this?
Solution: use references.
let mut stream = ...;
let reader = BufReader::new(&stream);
let writer = BufWriter::new(&stream);
Explanation
If we take a closer look at BufReader::new
, we see that it takes an argument inner
of type R
, where R
is just any type that implements Read
:
impl<R: Read> BufReader<R> {
pub fn new(inner: R) -> BufReader<R> { ... }
}
We then take a look at Read
and see this implementation:
impl<'a> Read for &'a TcpStream
So we can just pass a reference to the new
function, like so:
let reader = BufReader::new(&stream);
We will do the same for BufReader
and Write
and will see that indeed there is this implementation:
impl<'a> Write for &'a TcpStream
So we can, again, use an immutable reference to create the BufWriter
.
You have several possibilities:
- do not use a
BufReader
- temporarily borrow the stream from the
BufReader
using get_mut
- discard the
BufReader
entirely and recover the stream using into_inner
I would personally advise not using a BufReader
unless you really need to bufferize the input; for a single line it does not seem worth it.
Otherwise, if you are done with the buffering, you can recover the underlying stream and if you are not you can temporarily buffer it.
Caution: Do be aware that the BufReader
bufferizes reads, so when you borrow/recover the inner stream you short-circuit the buffered data; for reading it's an issue, in your case (writing) it should be fine.