Using a macro to initialize a big array of non-Copy elements

Question

I\'m trying to initialize a big array of elements with the same initializer. 64 elements is just an example — I want to make it at least 16k. Unfortunately a simple

Answer 1

The problem is that the expansion of a macro absolutely must be a complete and independently valid grammar element. You can't expand to a, b any more than you can expand to 42 +. There is also no way to (statically) concatenate or cons arrays in Rust; the entire array initialiser must be expanded to in one step.

This can be done using macros with push-down accumulation. The trick is that you pass the not-yet-syntactically-valid partial array expression down the recursion, instead of constructing on the way back out. When you reach the bottom of the expansion, you emit the now complete expression all at once.

Here's a macro that supports arrays of length 0 through 8, and powers of 2 up to 64:

macro_rules! array {
    (@accum (0, $($_es:expr),*) -> ($($body:tt)*))
        => {array!(@as_expr [$($body)*])};
    (@accum (1, $($es:expr),*) -> ($($body:tt)*))
        => {array!(@accum (0, $($es),*) -> ($($body)* $($es,)*))};
    (@accum (2, $($es:expr),*) -> ($($body:tt)*))
        => {array!(@accum (0, $($es),*) -> ($($body)* $($es,)* $($es,)*))};
    (@accum (3, $($es:expr),*) -> ($($body:tt)*))
        => {array!(@accum (2, $($es),*) -> ($($body)* $($es,)*))};
    (@accum (4, $($es:expr),*) -> ($($body:tt)*))
        => {array!(@accum (2, $($es,)* $($es),*) -> ($($body)*))};
    (@accum (5, $($es:expr),*) -> ($($body:tt)*))
        => {array!(@accum (4, $($es),*) -> ($($body)* $($es,)*))};
    (@accum (6, $($es:expr),*) -> ($($body:tt)*))
        => {array!(@accum (4, $($es),*) -> ($($body)* $($es,)* $($es,)*))};
    (@accum (7, $($es:expr),*) -> ($($body:tt)*))
        => {array!(@accum (4, $($es),*) -> ($($body)* $($es,)* $($es,)* $($es,)*))};
    (@accum (8, $($es:expr),*) -> ($($body:tt)*))
        => {array!(@accum (4, $($es,)* $($es),*) -> ($($body)*))};
    (@accum (16, $($es:expr),*) -> ($($body:tt)*))
        => {array!(@accum (8, $($es,)* $($es),*) -> ($($body)*))};
    (@accum (32, $($es:expr),*) -> ($($body:tt)*))
        => {array!(@accum (16, $($es,)* $($es),*) -> ($($body)*))};
    (@accum (64, $($es:expr),*) -> ($($body:tt)*))
        => {array!(@accum (32, $($es,)* $($es),*) -> ($($body)*))};

    (@as_expr $e:expr) => {$e};

    [$e:expr; $n:tt] => { array!(@accum ($n, $e) -> ()) };
}

fn main() {
    let ones: [i32; 64] = array![1; 64];
    println!("{:?}", &ones[..]);
}

The strategy here is to multiply the size of the input on powers of two, and add the remainder for non-powers of two. This is to stave off the macro recursion limit (I believe the default is 64) by making sure $n drops in value quickly.

Just to forestall the frequent follow-up question: no, you can't simplify this with arithmetic; you can't do arithmetic in macros. :)

Addendum: If you're not sure how this works, you can pass -Z trace-macros to rustc when compiling and see each macro invocation that gets expanded. Using array![1; 6] as an example, you get something like this:

array! { 1 ; 6 }
array! { @ accum ( 6 , 1 ) -> (  ) }
array! { @ accum ( 4 , 1 ) -> ( 1 , 1 , ) }
array! { @ accum ( 2 , 1 , 1 ) -> ( 1 , 1 , ) }
array! { @ accum ( 0 , 1 , 1 ) -> ( 1 , 1 , 1 , 1 , 1 , 1 , ) }
array! { @ as_expr [ 1 , 1 , 1 , 1 , 1 , 1 , ] }