As per the documentation of unit type ()
, It implements the Extend
trait.
fn extend<T>(&mut self, iter: T) where T: IntoIterator<Item = ()>,
Extends a collection with the contents of an iterator.
But I don't really understand the use of it. This allowed me to do the following:
fn main() {
let mut r = ();
println!("{:?}", r); // print `()`
r.extend(vec![(), ()]);
println!("{:?}", r); // This also print `()`
}
But it does not make any sense to me.
So my question is why does the unit type implement the Extend
trait?
Just a wild guess, but this piece of documentation gives a hint
impl FromIterator<()> for ()
Collapses all unit items from an iterator into one.
This is more useful when combined with higher-level abstractions, like collecting to a Result<(), E> where you only care about errors:
use std::io::*; let data = vec![1, 2, 3, 4, 5]; let res: Result<()> = data.iter() .map(|x| writeln!(stdout(), "{x}")) .collect(); assert!(res.is_ok());
That Extend
is also used in the standard library to conveniently aggregate function calls as if ()
were a collection.