Module generic_std::plug

Implementation of higher-kinded types in Rust using associated types.

This is a variation of Edmund Smith's method where instead of unplugging and plugging generic arguments between fully defined types (i.e. Vec<X> <-> Vec<Y>), higher-kinded types are represented as structs that implement either PlugLifetime or PlugType. We refer to these structs as HKT forms. To be explicit, sometimes we refer to types that are not HKT forms as concrete types or H0 types.

For example, H1Vec, the higher-kinded form of Vec, implements PlugType. Then, to get the concrete Vec<T> for a type T:

<H1Vec as PlugType<T>>::T

Conventions for HTK Forms

As a convention, all HKT forms must be zero-sized structs, only implement PlugLifetime or PlugType and respect the following naming convention:

H<n><t>

Where <n> is the number of lifetype + type arguments left to be filled, also referred to as slots, and <t> is the name of the concrete type. For example, Cow has two HKT forms:

• H2Cow which implements PlugLifetime, yielding H1Cow<'a>
• H1Cow<'a> which implements PlugType, yielding a concrete Cow<'a, T>

The generic arguments are always filled from left to right, lifetimes first. In some cases it might be useful to plug those out of order. In those cases we prepend something descriptive to the type name. See for example TypedH1Reference.

HKT-Compatible Concrete Types

The PlugLifetime and PlugType may also be implemented for concrete types, in which case Type is just itself. This is useful to implement streaming iterators and similar constructs. H0 is a type wrapper for exactly this case.

Structs

H0	Type-level wrapper that yields T unmodified when PlugLifetime or PlugType are applied.

Traits

PlugLifetime	Trait enabling a lifetime to plugged to HKT forms.
PlugType	Trait enabling a type to be plugged to HKT forms.