rusthashmaprust-rustlings

Confused by rustlings hashmaps3.rs


I'm doing the rustlings exercises, and I've arrived at a simple question after doing one of the exercises, but I'm also not sure I'm not doing something else wrong.

Here's the question: is it the case that Rust does support indexing with the square brackets to return something mutable, but that HashMap<K, V> doesn't implement it? And if that's not the case, what did I do wrong?

Here's the whole exercise for reference:

fn build_scores_table(results: String) -> HashMap<String, Team> {
    // The name of the team is the key and its associated struct is the value.
    let mut scores: HashMap<String, Team> = HashMap::new();

    for r in results.lines() {
        let v: Vec<&str> = r.split(',').collect();
        let team_1_name = v[0].to_string();
        let team_1_score: u8 = v[2].parse().unwrap();
        let team_2_name = v[1].to_string();
        let team_2_score: u8 = v[3].parse().unwrap();
        // TODO: Populate the scores table with details extracted from the
        // current line. Keep in mind that goals scored by team_1
        // will be the number of goals conceded from team_2, and similarly
        // goals scored by team_2 will be the number of goals conceded by
        // team_1.
    }
    scores
}

I tried a few different approaches and found one that compiles. It feels a little weird to me, but I think that's a good sign because I'm new to rust and because it looks clean, even if it feels unconventional to me.

let team1 = scores.get_mut(&team_1_name);
match team1 {
    Some(t) => {
        t.goals_scored   += team_1_score;
        t.goals_conceded += team_2_score;
    },
    None => {
        scores.insert(team_1_name, Team {
            goals_scored: team_1_score,
            goals_conceded: team_2_score
        });
    }
}

This, however, does not compile. The answer may be that the square bracket notation, which seems to be syntactic sugar for index, doesn't return a mutable, but I want to check if that's right.

if ! scores.contains_key(&team_2_name) {
    scores.insert(team_2_name.clone(), Team { goals_conceded: 0, goals_scored: 0 });
}

let team2 = scores[&team_2_name];
team2.goals_scored   += team_2_score;
team2.goals_conceded += team_1_score;

I'm trying to let the compiler teach me. I know that let team2... line is wrong because it's not mutable, but I thought the compiler might give me a good hint.

error[E0594]: cannot assign to `team2.goals_scored`, as `team2` is not declared as mutable
  --> exercises/hashmaps/hashmaps3.rs:62:9
   |
62 |         team2.goals_scored   += team_2_score;
   |         ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ cannot assign
   |
help: consider changing this to be mutable
   |
61 |         let mut team2 = scores[&team_2_name];
   |             +++

That gets me:

error[E0507]: cannot move out of index of `HashMap<String, Team>`
  --> exercises/hashmaps/hashmaps3.rs:61:25
   |
61 |         let mut team2 = scores[&team_2_name];
   |                         ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ move occurs because value has type `Team`, which does not implement the `Copy` trait
   |
help: consider borrowing here
   |
61 |         let mut team2 = &scores[&team_2_name];
   |                         +

Then I get:

warning: variable does not need to be mutable
  --> exercises/hashmaps/hashmaps3.rs:61:13
   |
61 |         let mut team2 = &scores[&team_2_name];
   |             ----^^^^^
   |             |
   |             help: remove this `mut`
   |
   = note: `#[warn(unused_mut)]` on by default

error[E0594]: cannot assign to `team2.goals_scored`, which is behind a `&` reference
  --> exercises/hashmaps/hashmaps3.rs:62:9
   |
62 |         team2.goals_scored   += team_2_score;
   |         ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ `team2` is a `&` reference, so the data it refers to cannot be written

Next is:

error[E0594]: cannot assign to `team2.goals_scored`, which is behind a `&` reference
  --> exercises/hashmaps/hashmaps3.rs:62:9
   |
62 |         team2.goals_scored   += team_2_score;
   |         ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ `team2` is a `&` reference, so the data it refers to cannot be written
   |
help: consider changing this to be a mutable reference
   |
61 |         let team2 = &mut scores[&team_2_name];
   |                      +++

error[E0594]: cannot assign to `team2.goals_conceded`, which is behind a `&` reference
  --> exercises/hashmaps/hashmaps3.rs:63:9
   |
63 |         team2.goals_conceded += team_1_score;
   |         ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ `team2` is a `&` reference, so the data it refers to cannot be written
   |
help: consider changing this to be a mutable reference
   |
61 |         let team2 = &mut scores[&team_2_name];
   |                      +++

Lastly, I get:

error[E0596]: cannot borrow data in an index of `HashMap<String, Team>` as mutable
  --> exercises/hashmaps/hashmaps3.rs:61:21
   |
61 |         let team2 = &mut scores[&team_2_name];
   |                     ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ cannot borrow as mutable
   |
   = help: trait `IndexMut` is required to modify indexed content, but it is not implemented for `HashMap<String, Team>`
   = help: to modify a `HashMap<String, Team>`, use `.get_mut()`, `.insert()` or the entry API

Interestingly, I think it's suggesting to do something similar to what I did for the first solution.


Solution

  • Rust supports two ways (traits) to index with []:

    Index returns an immutable reference - useful if one only wants to read the content.

    IndexMut returns a mutable reference - useful if one wants to change the contents at a certain index.

    HashMap does not implement IndexMut, probably because the contract of indexing (panic if entry does not exist) leads to misunderstandings and bad workarounds.

    HashMap instead provides get_mut or entry.