Grouping structs with enums

Question

In Rust, how should one go about grouping related structs so that a function signature can accept multiple different types while refering to the concrete type inside the method body?

The following example is contrived for simplicity:

enum Command {
    Increment {quantity: u32},
    Decrement {quantity: u32},
}

fn process_command(command: Command) {
    match command {
        Command::Increment => increase(command),
        Command::Decrement => decrease(command),
    };
}

fn increase(increment: Command::Increment) {
    println!("Increasing by: {}.", increment.quantity);
}

fn decrease(decrement: Command::Decrement) {
    println!("Decreasing by: {}.", decrement.quantity);
}

fn main() {
    let input = "Add";
    let quantity = 4;

    let command: Command = match input {
        "Add" => Command::Increment { quantity: quantity },
        "Subtract" => Command::Decrement { quantity: quantity },
        _ => unreachable!(),
    };

    process_command(command);
}

Compiling results in the following two errors:

src/main.rs:13:24: 13:42 error: found value name used as a type: DefVariant(DefId { krate: 0, node: 4 }, DefId { krate: 0, node: 5 }, true) [E0248]
src/main.rs:13 fn increase(increment: Command::Increment) {
                                      ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
src/main.rs:17:24: 17:42 error: found value name used as a type: DefVariant(DefId { krate: 0, node: 4 }, DefId { krate: 0, node: 8 }, true) [E0248]
src/main.rs:17 fn decrease(decrement: Command::Decrement) {
                                      ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
error: aborting due to 2 previous errors

If I declare the structs seperately, and wrap the structs within a tuple struct (correct terminology?) each within the enum then I get the expected result, but with the verbosity and similar type names all over the place I suspect that I've misunderstood someting:

struct Increment {
    quantity: u32,
}

struct Decrement {
    quantity: u32,
}

enum Command {
    Increment(Increment),
    Decrement(Decrement),
}

fn process_command(command: Command) {
    match command {
        Command::Increment(increment) => increase(increment),
        Command::Decrement(decrement) => decrease(decrement),
    };
}

fn increase(increment: Increment) {
    println!("Increasing by: {}.", increment.quantity);
}

fn decrease(decrement: Decrement) {
    println!("Decreasing by: {}.", decrement.quantity);
}

fn main() {
    let input = "Add";
    let quantity = 4;

    let command: Command = match input {
        "Add" => Command::Increment(Increment { quantity: quantity }),
        "Subtract" => Command::Decrement(Decrement { quantity: quantity }),
        _ => unreachable!(),
    };

    process_command(command);
}

Running outputs:

Increasing by: 4.

Is wrapping the struct within an enum type (terminology?) sharing the same name really the best solution? Command::Increment(Increment { quantity: 7 })

Answer 1

Yes, this is the best you will get along this line of implementation. An enum is one type only; its variants are purely that—variants, not types.

Another alternative is to use a trait and generics:

struct Increment {
    quantity: u32,
}

struct Decrement {
    quantity: u32,
}

trait Command {
    fn process(self);
}

impl Command for Increment {
    fn process(self) {
        println!("Increasing by {}", self.quantity);
    }
}

impl Command for Decrement {
    fn process(self) {
        println!("Decreasing by {}", self.quantity);
    }
}

Of course, it’s not a direct parallel; if you want to store a command of potentially differing types you’ll need to change process to take self: Box<Self> or &self, and you’ll need to work with either Box<Command> or &Command, but it’s another way of doing things that may suit your requirements. And as far as the definitions are concerned, it’s purer.

Answer 2

I may be misunderstanding your simple example, but remember that you can implement methods on enums directly:

enum Command {
    Increment {quantity: u32},
    Decrement {quantity: u32},
}

impl Command {
    fn process(self) {
        match self {
            Command::Increment { quantity } => {
                println!("Increasing by: {}.", quantity)
            },
            Command::Decrement { quantity } => {
                println!("Decreasing by: {}.", quantity)
            },
        };
    }
}

fn main() {
    let input = "Add";
    let quantity = 4;

    let command: Command = match input {
        "Add" => Command::Increment { quantity: quantity },
        "Subtract" => Command::Decrement { quantity: quantity },
        _ => unreachable!(),
    };

    command.process();
}

I happen to like this version because it eliminates the redundancy of process_command(command).