Struct expressions - The Rust Reference

# Struct expressions

There are several forms of struct expressions. A struct expression consists of the path of a struct item, followed by a brace-enclosed list of zero or more comma-separated name-value pairs, providing the field values of a new instance of the struct. A field name can be any identifier, and is separated from its value expression by a colon. In the case of a tuple struct the field names are numbers corresponding to the position of the field. The numbers must be written in decimal, containing no underscores and with no leading zeros or integer suffix. A value of a union type can also be created using this syntax, except that it must specify exactly one field.

Struct expressions can't be used directly in the head of a loop or an if, if let or match expression. But struct expressions can still be in used inside parentheses, for example.

A tuple struct expression consists of the path of a struct item, followed by a parenthesized list of one or more comma-separated expressions (in other words, the path of a struct item followed by a tuple expression). The struct item must be a tuple struct item.

A unit-like struct expression consists only of the path of a struct item.

The following are examples of struct expressions:

    # #![allow(unused_variables)]
    #fn main() {
    # struct Point { x: f64, y: f64 }
    # struct NothingInMe { }
    # struct TuplePoint(f64, f64);
    # mod game { pub struct User<'a> { pub name: &'a str, pub age: u32, pub score: usize } }
    # struct Cookie; fn some_fn<T>(t: T) {}
    Point {x: 10.0, y: 20.0};
    NothingInMe {};
    TuplePoint(10.0, 20.0);
    TuplePoint { 0: 10.0, 1: 20.0 }; // Results in the same value as the above line
    let u = game::User {name: "Joe", age: 35, score: 100_000};
    some_fn::<Cookie>(Cookie);
    #}

A struct expression forms a new value of the named struct type. Note that for a given unit-like struct type, this will always be the same value.

A struct expression can terminate with the syntax `..` followed by an expression to denote a functional update. The expression following `..` (the base) must have the same struct type as the new struct type being formed. The entire expression denotes the result of constructing a new struct (with the same type as the base expression) with the given values for the fields that were explicitly specified and the values in the base expression for all other fields. Just as with all struct expressions, all of the fields of the struct must be visible, even those not explicitly named.

    # #![allow(unused_variables)]
    #fn main() {
    # struct Point3d { x: i32, y: i32, z: i32 }
    let base = Point3d {x: 1, y: 2, z: 3};
    Point3d {y: 0, z: 10, .. base};
    #}

## Struct field init shorthand

When initializing a data structure (struct, enum, union) with named (but not numbered) fields, it is allowed to write `fieldname` as a shorthand for `fieldname: fieldname`. This allows a compact syntax with less duplication.

Example:

    # #![allow(unused_variables)]
    #fn main() {
    # struct Point3d { x: i32, y: i32, z: i32 }
    # let x = 0;
    # let y_value = 0;
    # let z = 0;
    Point3d { x: x, y: y_value, z: z };
    Point3d { x, y: y_value, z };
    #}