## Keyboard shortcuts

Press `←` or `→` to navigate between chapters

Press `S` or `/` to search in the book

Press `?` to show this help

Press `Esc` to hide this help

## Using Trait Objects to Abstract over Shared Behavior

In Chapter 8, we mentioned that one limitation of vectors is that they can store elements of only one type. We created a workaround in Listing 8-9 where we defined a `SpreadsheetCell` enum that had variants to hold integers, floats, and text. This meant we could store different types of data in each cell and still have a vector that represented a row of cells. This is a perfectly good solution when our interchangeable items are a fixed set of types that we know when our code is compiled.

However, sometimes we want our library user to be able to extend the set of types that are valid in a particular situation. To show how we might achieve this, we’ll create an example graphical user interface (GUI) tool that iterates through a list of items, calling a `draw` method on each one to draw it to the screen—a common technique for GUI tools. We’ll create a library crate called `gui` that contains the structure of a GUI library. This crate might include some types for people to use, such as `Button` or `TextField`. In addition, `gui` users will want to create their own types that can be drawn: For instance, one programmer might add an `Image`, and another might add a `SelectBox`.

At the time of writing the library, we can’t know and define all the types other programmers might want to create. But we do know that `gui` needs to keep track of many values of different types, and it needs to call a `draw` method on each of these differently typed values. It doesn’t need to know exactly what will happen when we call the `draw` method, just that the value will have that method available for us to call.

To do this in a language with inheritance, we might define a class named `Component` that has a method named `draw` on it. The other classes, such as `Button`, `Image`, and `SelectBox`, would inherit from `Component` and thus inherit the `draw` method. They could each override the `draw` method to define their custom behavior, but the framework could treat all of the types as if they were `Component` instances and call `draw` on them. But because Rust doesn’t have inheritance, we need another way to structure the `gui` library to allow users to create new types compatible with the library.

### Defining a Trait for Common Behavior

To implement the behavior that we want `gui` to have, we’ll define a trait named `Draw` that will have one method named `draw`. Then, we can define a vector that takes a trait object. A trait object points to both an instance of a type implementing our specified trait and a table used to look up trait methods on that type at runtime. We create a trait object by specifying some sort of pointer, such as a reference or a `Box<T>` smart pointer, then the `dyn` keyword, and then specifying the relevant trait. (We’ll talk about the reason trait objects must use a pointer in “Dynamically Sized Types and the `Sized` Trait” in Chapter 20.) We can use trait objects in place of a generic or concrete type. Wherever we use a trait object, Rust’s type system will ensure at compile time that any value used in that context will implement the trait object’s trait. Consequently, we don’t need to know all the possible types at compile time.

We’ve mentioned that, in Rust, we refrain from calling structs and enums “objects” to distinguish them from other languages’ objects. In a struct or enum, the data in the struct fields and the behavior in `impl` blocks are separated, whereas in other languages, the data and behavior combined into one concept is often labeled an object. Trait objects differ from objects in other languages in that we can’t add data to a trait object. Trait objects aren’t as generally useful as objects in other languages: Their specific purpose is to allow abstraction across common behavior.

Listing 18-3 shows how to define a trait named `Draw` with one method named `draw`.

Filename: src/lib.rs

    pub trait Draw {
        fn draw(&self);
    }

Listing 18-3: Definition of the `Draw` trait

This syntax should look familiar from our discussions on how to define traits in Chapter 10. Next comes some new syntax: Listing 18-4 defines a struct named `Screen` that holds a vector named `components`. This vector is of type `Box<dyn Draw>`, which is a trait object; it’s a stand-in for any type inside a `Box` that implements the `Draw` trait.

Filename: src/lib.rs

    pub trait Draw {
        fn draw(&self);
    }

    pub struct Screen {
        pub components: Vec<Box<dyn Draw>>,
    }

Listing 18-4: Definition of the `Screen` struct with a `components` field holding a vector of trait objects that implement the `Draw` trait

On the `Screen` struct, we’ll define a method named `run` that will call the `draw` method on each of its `components`, as shown in Listing 18-5.

Filename: src/lib.rs

    pub trait Draw {
        fn draw(&self);
    }

    pub struct Screen {
        pub components: Vec<Box<dyn Draw>>,
    }

    impl Screen {
        pub fn run(&self) {
            for component in self.components.iter() {
                component.draw();
            }
        }
    }

Listing 18-5: A `run` method on `Screen` that calls the `draw` method on each component

This works differently from defining a struct that uses a generic type parameter with trait bounds. A generic type parameter can be substituted with only one concrete type at a time, whereas trait objects allow for multiple concrete types to fill in for the trait object at runtime. For example, we could have defined the `Screen` struct using a generic type and a trait bound, as in Listing 18-6.

Filename: src/lib.rs

    pub trait Draw {
        fn draw(&self);
    }

    pub struct Screen<T: Draw> {
        pub components: Vec<T>,
    }

    impl<T> Screen<T>
    where
        T: Draw,
    {
        pub fn run(&self) {
            for component in self.components.iter() {
                component.draw();
            }
        }
    }

Listing 18-6: An alternate implementation of the `Screen` struct and its `run` method using generics and trait bounds

This restricts us to a `Screen` instance that has a list of components all of type `Button` or all of type `TextField`. If you’ll only ever have homogeneous collections, using generics and trait bounds is preferable because the definitions will be monomorphized at compile time to use the concrete types.

On the other hand, with the method using trait objects, one `Screen` instance can hold a `Vec<T>` that contains a `Box<Button>` as well as a `Box<TextField>`. Let’s look at how this works, and then we’ll talk about the runtime performance implications.

### Implementing the Trait

Now we’ll add some types that implement the `Draw` trait. We’ll provide the `Button` type. Again, actually implementing a GUI library is beyond the scope of this book, so the `draw` method won’t have any useful implementation in its body. To imagine what the implementation might look like, a `Button` struct might have fields for `width`, `height`, and `label`, as shown in Listing 18-7.

Filename: src/lib.rs

    pub trait Draw {
        fn draw(&self);
    }

    pub struct Screen {
        pub components: Vec<Box<dyn Draw>>,
    }

    impl Screen {
        pub fn run(&self) {
            for component in self.components.iter() {
                component.draw();
            }
        }
    }

    pub struct Button {
        pub width: u32,
        pub height: u32,
        pub label: String,
    }

    impl Draw for Button {
        fn draw(&self) {
            // code to actually draw a button
        }
    }

Listing 18-7: A `Button` struct that implements the `Draw` trait

The `width`, `height`, and `label` fields on `Button` will differ from the fields on other components; for example, a `TextField` type might have those same fields plus a `placeholder` field. Each of the types we want to draw on the screen will implement the `Draw` trait but will use different code in the `draw` method to define how to draw that particular type, as `Button` has here (without the actual GUI code, as mentioned). The `Button` type, for instance, might have an additional `impl` block containing methods related to what happens when a user clicks the button. These kinds of methods won’t apply to types like `TextField`.

If someone using our library decides to implement a `SelectBox` struct that has `width`, `height`, and `options` fields, they would implement the `Draw` trait on the `SelectBox` type as well, as shown in Listing 18-8.

Filename: src/main.rs

    use gui::Draw;

    struct SelectBox {
        width: u32,
        height: u32,
        options: Vec<String>,
    }

    impl Draw for SelectBox {
        fn draw(&self) {
            // code to actually draw a select box
        }
    }

    fn main() {}

Listing 18-8: Another crate using `gui` and implementing the `Draw` trait on a `SelectBox` struct

Our library’s user can now write their `main` function to create a `Screen` instance. To the `Screen` instance, they can add a `SelectBox` and a `Button` by putting each in a `Box<T>` to become a trait object. They can then call the `run` method on the `Screen` instance, which will call `draw` on each of the components. Listing 18-9 shows this implementation.

Filename: src/main.rs

    use gui::Draw;

    struct SelectBox {
        width: u32,
        height: u32,
        options: Vec<String>,
    }

    impl Draw for SelectBox {
        fn draw(&self) {
            // code to actually draw a select box
        }
    }

    use gui::{Button, Screen};

    fn main() {
        let screen = Screen {
            components: vec![
                Box::new(SelectBox {
                    width: 75,
                    height: 10,
                    options: vec![
                        String::from("Yes"),
                        String::from("Maybe"),
                        String::from("No"),
                    ],
                }),
                Box::new(Button {
                    width: 50,
                    height: 10,
                    label: String::from("OK"),
                }),
            ],
        };

        screen.run();
    }

Listing 18-9: Using trait objects to store values of different types that implement the same trait

When we wrote the library, we didn’t know that someone might add the `SelectBox` type, but our `Screen` implementation was able to operate on the new type and draw it because `SelectBox` implements the `Draw` trait, which means it implements the `draw` method.

This concept—of being concerned only with the messages a value responds to rather than the value’s concrete type—is similar to the concept of duck typing in dynamically typed languages: If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it must be a duck! In the implementation of `run` on `Screen` in Listing 18-5, `run` doesn’t need to know what the concrete type of each component is. It doesn’t check whether a component is an instance of a `Button` or a `SelectBox`, it just calls the `draw` method on the component. By specifying `Box<dyn Draw>` as the type of the values in the `components` vector, we’ve defined `Screen` to need values that we can call the `draw` method on.

The advantage of using trait objects and Rust’s type system to write code similar to code using duck typing is that we never have to check whether a value implements a particular method at runtime or worry about getting errors if a value doesn’t implement a method but we call it anyway. Rust won’t compile our code if the values don’t implement the traits that the trait objects need.

For example, Listing 18-10 shows what happens if we try to create a `Screen` with a `String` as a component.

Filename: src/main.rs

    use gui::Screen;

    fn main() {
        let screen = Screen {
            components: vec![Box::new(String::from("Hi"))],
        };

        screen.run();
    }

Listing 18-10: Attempting to use a type that doesn’t implement the trait object’s trait

We’ll get this error because `String` doesn’t implement the `Draw` trait:

    $ cargo run
       Compiling gui v0.1.0 (file:///projects/gui)
    error[E0277]: the trait bound `String: Draw` is not satisfied
     --> src/main.rs:5:26
      |
    5 |         components: vec![Box::new(String::from("Hi"))],
      |                          ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ the trait `Draw` is not implemented for `String`
      |
      = help: the trait `Draw` is implemented for `Button`
      = note: required for the cast from `Box<String>` to `Box<dyn Draw>`

    For more information about this error, try `rustc --explain E0277`.
    error: could not compile `gui` (bin "gui") due to 1 previous error

This error lets us know that either we’re passing something to `Screen` that we didn’t mean to pass and so should pass a different type, or we should implement `Draw` on `String` so that `Screen` is able to call `draw` on it.

### Performing Dynamic Dispatch

Recall in “Performance of Code Using Generics” in Chapter 10 our discussion on the monomorphization process performed on generics by the compiler: The compiler generates nongeneric implementations of functions and methods for each concrete type that we use in place of a generic type parameter. The code that results from monomorphization is doing static dispatch, which is when the compiler knows what method you’re calling at compile time. This is opposed to dynamic dispatch, which is when the compiler can’t tell at compile time which method you’re calling. In dynamic dispatch cases, the compiler emits code that at runtime will know which method to call.

When we use trait objects, Rust must use dynamic dispatch. The compiler doesn’t know all the types that might be used with the code that’s using trait objects, so it doesn’t know which method implemented on which type to call. Instead, at runtime, Rust uses the pointers inside the trait object to know which method to call. This lookup incurs a runtime cost that doesn’t occur with static dispatch. Dynamic dispatch also prevents the compiler from choosing to inline a method’s code, which in turn prevents some optimizations, and Rust has some rules about where you can and cannot use dynamic dispatch, called dyn compatibility. Those rules are beyond the scope of this discussion, but you can read more about them in the reference. However, we did get extra flexibility in the code that we wrote in Listing 18-5 and were able to support in Listing 18-9, so it’s a trade-off to consider.