Crate shallow_debug

Shallow debug

A crate that allows any type to derive a very simple and “shallow” debug impl. The impl will only print the enum variant, but not the content of the variant. For structs, it will only print the struct’s name, and none of it’s field’s values.

This is mainly useful for enums when the variant is already useful information. Since none of the inner values are printed, they don’t have to implement Debug, so this can also be useful in highly generic code where you just want a quick and simple way to get debug information.

Example

#[derive(ShallowDebug)]
enum MyEnum<A, B, C> {
    A(A),
    B(B),
    C(C),
}

let value: MyEnum<i32, &str, usize> = MyEnum::A(123);
assert_eq!(format!("{value:?}"), "MyEnum::A(..)");

Derive Macros

ShallowDebug

A derive macro that is able to implement Debug for any type, without requiring it’s inner types to also implement the Debug trait. In order to do this, the Debug impl that is generated is “shallow”, meaning it will only print the enum variant names, but not their internal values. You can also #[derive(ShallowDebug)] for structs and unions, but it will not print the field values. In general this is more useful for enums, since the variant can already tell you useful information.