Generic Type Mismatch using Trait in Rust

Question

I am doing a matrix addition using traits. I am stuck by the generic type mismatch. My code is as following:

use std::{ops, fmt};

#[derive(PartialEq, Debug)]
pub struct Matrix<T> {
    data: Vec<T>,
    row: usize,
    col: usize,
}

impl<T: Copy> Matrix<T> {
    /// Creates a new matrix of `row` rows and `col` columns, and initializes
    /// the matrix with the elements in `values` in row-major order.
    pub fn new(row: usize, col: usize, values: &[T]) -> Matrix<T> {
        Matrix {
            data: values.to_vec(), // make copy and convert &[T] to vector type
            row: row,
            col: col,
        }
    }
}

impl<T: ops::Add<Output = T> + Copy> ops::Add for Matrix<T> {
    type Output = Self;

    /// Returns the sum of `self` and `rhs`. If `self.row != rhs.row || self.col != rhs.col`, panic.
    fn add(self, rhs: Self) -> Self::Output {

        assert!(self.col == rhs.col);
        assert!(self.row == rhs.row);

        let mut newdata = Vec::new(); // make a new vector to store result
        let mut sum: i32; // temp variable to record each addition

        for num1 in self.data.iter() {
            for num2 in rhs.data.iter() {
                sum = *num1 + *num2;
                newdata.push(sum)
            }
        }

        Matrix {
            data: newdata, // finally, return addition result using new_data
            row: self.row,
            col: self.col,
        }
    }
}

fn main() {
    let x = Matrix::new(2, 3, &[-6, -5, 0, 1, 2, 3]);
    let y = Matrix::new(2, 3, &[0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0]);
    // z = x + y;
}

Compiling the program, I got two errors about type mismatch:

error[E0308]: mismatched types
  --> src/main.rs:36:23
   |
36 |                 sum = *num1 + *num2;
   |                       ^^^^^^^^^^^^^ expected i32, found type parameter
   |
   = note: expected type `i32`
   = note:    found type `T`

error[E0308]: mismatched types
  --> src/main.rs:41:9
   |
41 |         Matrix {
   |         ^ expected type parameter, found i32
   |
   = note: expected type `Matrix<T>`
   = note:    found type `Matrix<i32>`

My thoughts:

num1 would deref the vector and get a integer type, that's why I use a sum to record the result.
I am trying to return a Matrix type value at the end of the function.

What is going wrong?

score 6 · Answer 1 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:13

This is the entire knowledge of your types that the code can rely on inside of the method:

impl<T: ops::Add<Output = T> + Copy> ops::Add for Matrix<T> {
    type Output = Self;
    fn add(self, rhs: Self) -> Self::Output {
        // ...
    }
}

Based on that, how would it be possible to make this assumption?

num1 would deref the vector and get a integer type

There is no way to know what concrete type T will be!

Beyond that, even if it were some integer type, how would it be possible to assume that summing into an i32 is acceptable? What if T were a i64?

The solution is to remove any assumptions and let the compiler do its job. Remove the type annotation from sum and the code compiles. I find it good practice to always allow the compiler to infer my types when possible.

Generic Type Mismatch using Trait in Rust

1 Answers1