Stabilize let else by est31 · Pull Request #93628 · rust-lang/rust (original) (raw)

🎉 Stabilizes the let else feature, added by RFC 3137. 🎉

Reference PR: rust-lang/reference#1156

closes #87335 (let else tracking issue)

FCP: #93628 (comment)


Stabilization report

Summary

The feature allows refutable patterns in let statements if the expression is
followed by a diverging else:

fn get_count_item(s: &str) -> (u64, &str) { let mut it = s.split(' '); let (Some(count_str), Some(item)) = (it.next(), it.next()) else { panic!("Can't segment count item pair: '{s}'"); }; let Ok(count) = u64::from_str(count_str) else { panic!("Can't parse integer: '{count_str}'"); }; (count, item) } assert_eq!(get_count_item("3 chairs"), (3, "chairs"));

Differences from the RFC / Desugaring

Outside of desugaring I'm not aware of any differences between the implementation and the RFC. The chosen desugaring has been changed from the RFC's original. You can read a detailed discussion of the implementation history of it in @cormacrelf 's summary in this thread, as well as the followup. Since that followup, further changes have happened to the desugaring, in #98574, #99518, #99954. The later changes were mostly about the drop order: On match, temporaries drop in the same order as they would for a let declaration. On mismatch, temporaries drop before the else block.

Test cases

In chronological order as they were merged.

Added by df9a2e0 (#87688):

Added by 5b95df4 (#87688):

Added by bf7c32a (#89965):

Added by 8565419 (#89974):

Added by 9b45713:

Added by 61bcd8d (#89841):

Added by 102b912 (#89841):

Added by 2715c5f (#89841):

Added by fec8a50 (#89841):

Added since this stabilization report was originally written (2022-02-09)

Added by 76ea566 (#94211):

Added by e7730dc (#94208):

Added by 5bd7106 (#94208):

Added by 5374688 (#98574):

Added by 6c529de (#98574):

Added by 9b56640 (#99518):

Added by baf9a7c (#99518):

Added by 60be2de (#99518):

Added by 47a7a91 (#100132):

Added by e3c5bd6 (#100443):

Added by 9818526 (#100443):

Added by e182d12 (#100434):

Added by e262856 (#99954):

Added by 2d8460e (#99291):

Added by 1b87ce0 (#101410):

Added by af591eb (#101410):

Added by this PR:

Things not currently tested

Edit: they are all tested now.

Possible future work / Refutable destructuring assignments

RFC 2909 specifies destructuring assignment, allowing statements like FooBar { a, b, c } = foo();.
As it was stabilized, destructuring assignment only allows irrefutable patterns, which before the advent of let else were the only patterns that let supported.
So the combination of let else and destructuring assignments gives reason to think about extensions of the destructuring assignments feature that allow refutable patterns, discussed in #93995.

A naive mapping of let else to destructuring assignments in the form of Some(v) = foo() else { ... }; might not be the ideal way. let else needs a diverging else clause as it introduces new bindings, while assignments have a default behaviour to fall back to if the pattern does not match, in the form of not performing the assignment. Thus, there is no good case to require divergence, or even an else clause at all, beyond the need for having some introducer syntax so that it is clear to readers that the assignment is not a given (enums and structs look similar). There are better candidates for introducer syntax however than an empty else {} clause, like maybe which could be added as a keyword on an edition boundary:

let mut v = 0; maybe Some(v) = foo(&v); maybe Some(v) = foo(&v) else { bar() };

Further design discussion is left to an RFC, or the linked issue.