This crate dynvec provides the DynVec type that acts like a vector to store any datatype.

By default, the DynVec uses a system of chunks that are allocated on the heap when needed but this can be changed using the RawDynVec structure along with a Region.

At the moment, three types of regions are implemented.

• Block: A fixed-size block of memory
• Chunks: A region that allocates Blocks (chunks) when one becomes full.
• Global: A simple region that maps to rust's allocator (each item is allocated anywhere on the heap memory).

Example

Using the default DynVec:

use dynvec::DynVec;

// Create an empty `DynVec`
let mut my_vec = DynVec::new();

// By default, each chunk will be allocated with a size of 1024 bytes.
// This can be changed using the `DynVec::with_chunk_size` function.

// Items can be inserted into the vector
let handle_u8 = my_vec.insert(142u8);
let handle_str = my_vec.insert("Hello, world!");
let handle_vec = my_vec.insert(vec![1, 2, 3]);

// They can be accessed normally using indexing operations
my_vec[handle_vec].push(4);
assert_eq!(my_vec[handle_u8], 142);
assert_eq!(my_vec[handle_str], "Hello, world!");
assert_eq!(&my_vec[handle_vec][..], &[1, 2, 3, 4][..]);

// Removing them is just as easy
let vector = my_vec.remove(handle_vec).unwrap();
assert_eq!(&vector[..], &[1, 2, 3, 4][..]);

// The vector can be cleared (everything gets properly dropped)
my_vec.clear();

Using another type of region:

use dynvec::{RawDynVec, Global};

// This is basically a vector of boxes.
let mut my_vec = RawDynVec::with_region(Global::default());
my_vec.insert(42);
my_vec.insert("Hello");

You might want to avoid having typed handles everywhere. You can use raw handles:

use dynvec::DynVec;
    
let mut my_vec = DynVec::new();
let mut handles = Vec::new();

handles.push(my_vec.insert("ABC").raw());
handles.push(my_vec.insert(64u8).raw());
handles.push(my_vec.insert(String::from("BDE")).raw());

for handle in handles {
    // This returns nothing
    // We do not know the type of the item anymore
    // The item gets properly dropped though
    my_vec.remove_raw(handle).unwrap();
}

Note

I used DynVec as a name even though it is not at all a vector because it makes it easy to understand what it does.