Feature gate: #![feature(drain_keep_rest)]

This is a tracking issue for vec::Drain::keep_rest, methods allowing to keep elements in a Vec after draining some of them.

Public API

// mod alloc::vec

impl<T, A: Allocator> Drain<'_, T, A> {
    pub fn keep_rest(self);
}

Steps / History

• Implementation: Add vec::Drain{,Filter}::keep_rest #95376
• Final comment period (FCP)¹
• Stabilization PR

Unresolved Questions

• Just change the not-yet-stable Drop for DrainFilter to keep rest?
  • Advantage: usually what you want (??)
    • e.g. .drain_filter(f).take(N) works as expected
  • Disadvantage: inconsistent with stable Drop for Drain
  • If you want to remove rest (matching the current unstable behavior of drain_filter) then you'd need to write .foreach(drop) to explicitly drop all the rest of the range that matches the filter.
• &mut self instead of self?
  • If you're holding a Drain inside a struct and are operating on it from a &mut self method of the struct, keep_rest(self) is impossible to use. :(
    • You'd want something like mem::replace(&mut self.drain_filter, Vec::new().drain(..)).keep_rest() but the borrow checker won't like that.
    • Failing that, you'd need to change your Drain field to Option<Drain> and use self.drain_filter.take().unwrap().keep_rest() along with unwrap() everywhere else that the drain is used. Not good.
  • We'd need to define behavior of calling .next() after .keep_rest(). Presumably one of:
    • .next() returns None
    • this is considered incorrect usage and so .next() panic!s
    • .keep_rest() sets a flag inside the Drain which Drop will use to decide its behavior, and you're free to continue accessing iterator elements in between.
  • Another alternative: add a const EXHAUST_ON_DROP: bool = true const generic parameter
    • It's still impossible to set the flag without ownership
    • You can store &mut Drain<'a, T, A, false> from the beginning
    • Works better with iterator APIs, i.e.

      vec.drain_filter(f).keeping_rest().take(N).for_each(g);

      Instead of

      let mut iter = vec.drain_filter(f);
      iter.by_ref().take(N).for_each(g);
      iter.keep_rest()