I'm new to Rust and looking to understand concepts like borrowing. I'm trying to create a simple two dimensional array using standard input. The code:
use std::io;
fn main() {
let mut values = [["0"; 6]; 6]; // 6 * 6 array
// iterate 6 times for user input
for i in 0..6 {
let mut outputs = String::new();
io::stdin().read_line(&mut outputs).expect(
"failed to read line",
);
// read space separated list 6 numbers. Eg: 5 7 8 4 3 9
let values_itr = outputs.trim().split(' ');
let mut j = 0;
for (_, value) in values_itr.enumerate() {
values[i][j] = value;
j += 1;
}
}
}
This won't compile because the outputs
variable lifetime is not long enough:
error[E0597]: `outputs` does not live long enough
--> src/main.rs:20:5
|
14 | let values_itr = outputs.trim().split(' ');
| ------- borrow occurs here
...
20 | }
| ^ `outputs` dropped here while still borrowed
21 | }
| - borrowed value needs to live until here
How can I get the iterated values out of the block into values array?
split()
gives you substrings (string slices) borrowed from the original string, and the original string is outputs
from line 6.
- The string slices can't outlive the scope of
outputs
: when a loop iteration ends, outputs
is deallocated.
Since values
is longer lived, the slices can't be stored there.
- We can't borrow slices of
outputs
across a modification of outputs
. So even if the String
outputs
itself was defined before values
, we couldn't easily put the string slices from .split()
into values
; modifying the string (reading into it) invalidates the slices.
A solution needs to either
- Use a nested array of
String
, and when you assign an element from the split iterator, make a String
from the &str
using .to_string()
. I would recommend this solution. (However an array of String
is not at as easy to work with, maybe already this requires using Vec
instead.) 1
- Read all input before constructing a nested array of
&str
that borrows from the input String
. This is good if the nested array is something that you only need temporarily.
1: You can use something like vec![vec![String::new(); 6]; 6]
instead
This answer was moved from the question, where it solved the OPs needs.
use std::io;
fn main() {
let mut values = vec![vec![String::new(); 6]; 6];
for i in 0..6 {
let mut outputs = String::new();
io::stdin().read_line(&mut outputs)
.expect("failed to read line");
let values_itr = outputs.trim().split(' ');
let mut j = 0;
for (_, value) in values_itr.enumerate() {
values[i][j] = value.to_string();
j += 1;
}
}
}