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## Defining and Instantiating Structs

Structs are similar to tuples, discussed in [“The Tuple Type”][tuples]<!--
ignore --> section, in that both hold multiple related values. Like tuples, the
pieces of a struct can be different types. Unlike with tuples, in a struct
you’ll name each piece of data so it’s clear what the values mean. Adding these
names means that structs are more flexible than tuples: you don’t have to rely
on the order of the data to specify or access the values of an instance.

To define a struct, we enter the keyword `struct` and name the entire struct. A
struct’s name should describe the significance of the pieces of data being
grouped together. Then, inside curly brackets, we define the names and types of
the pieces of data, which we call *fields*. For example, Listing 5-1 shows a
struct that stores information about a user account.

```rust
{{#rustdoc_include ../listings/ch05-using-structs-to-structure-related-data/listing-05-01/src/main.rs:here}}
```

<span class="caption">Listing 5-1: A `User` struct definition</span>

To use a struct after we’ve defined it, we create an *instance* of that struct
by specifying concrete values for each of the fields. We create an instance by
stating the name of the struct and then add curly brackets containing `key:
value` pairs, where the keys are the names of the fields and the values are the
data we want to store in those fields. We don’t have to specify the fields in
the same order in which we declared them in the struct. In other words, the
struct definition is like a general template for the type, and instances fill
in that template with particular data to create values of the type. For
example, we can declare a particular user as shown in Listing 5-2.

```rust
{{#rustdoc_include ../listings/ch05-using-structs-to-structure-related-data/listing-05-02/src/main.rs:here}}
```

<span class="caption">Listing 5-2: Creating an instance of the `User`
struct</span>

To get a specific value from a struct, we use dot notation. For example, to
access this user’s email address, we use `user1.email`. If the instance is
mutable, we can change a value by using the dot notation and assigning into a
particular field. Listing 5-3 shows how to change the value in the `email`
field of a mutable `User` instance.

```rust
{{#rustdoc_include ../listings/ch05-using-structs-to-structure-related-data/listing-05-03/src/main.rs:here}}
```

<span class="caption">Listing 5-3: Changing the value in the `email` field of a
`User` instance</span>

Note that the entire instance must be mutable; Rust doesn’t allow us to mark
only certain fields as mutable. As with any expression, we can construct a new
instance of the struct as the last expression in the function body to
implicitly return that new instance.

Listing 5-4 shows a `build_user` function that returns a `User` instance with
the given email and username. The `active` field gets the value of `true`, and
the `sign_in_count` gets a value of `1`.

```rust
{{#rustdoc_include ../listings/ch05-using-structs-to-structure-related-data/listing-05-04/src/main.rs:here}}
```

<span class="caption">Listing 5-4: A `build_user` function that takes an email
and username and returns a `User` instance</span>

It makes sense to name the function parameters with the same name as the struct
fields, but having to repeat the `email` and `username` field names and
variables is a bit tedious. If the struct had more fields, repeating each name
would get even more annoying. Luckily, there’s a convenient shorthand!

<a id="using-the-field-init-shorthand-when-variables-and-fields-have-the-same-name"></a>
### Using the Field Init Shorthand

Because the parameter names and the struct field names are exactly the same in
Listing 5-4, we can use the *field init shorthand* syntax to rewrite
`build_user` so that it behaves exactly the same but doesn’t have the
repetition of `email` and `username`, as shown in Listing 5-5.

```rust
{{#rustdoc_include ../listings/ch05-using-structs-to-structure-related-data/listing-05-05/src/main.rs:here}}
```

<span class="caption">Listing 5-5: A `build_user` function that uses field init
shorthand because the `email` and `username` parameters have the same name as
struct fields</span>

Here, we’re creating a new instance of the `User` struct, which has a field
named `email`. We want to set the `email` field’s value to the value in the
`email` parameter of the `build_user` function. Because the `email` field and
the `email` parameter have the same name, we only need to write `email` rather
than `email: email`.

### Creating Instances From Other Instances With Struct Update Syntax

It’s often useful to create a new instance of a struct that includes most of
the values from another instance, but changes some. You can do this using
*struct update syntax*.

First, in Listing 5-6 we show how to create a new `User` instance in `user2`
regularly, without the update syntax. We set a new value for `email` but
otherwise use the same values from `user1` that we created in Listing 5-2.

```rust
{{#rustdoc_include ../listings/ch05-using-structs-to-structure-related-data/listing-05-06/src/main.rs:here}}
```

<span class="caption">Listing 5-6: Creating a new `User` instance using one of
the values from `user1`</span>

Using struct update syntax, we can achieve the same effect with less code, as
shown in Listing 5-7. The syntax `..` specifies that the remaining fields not
explicitly set should have the same value as the fields in the given instance.

```rust
{{#rustdoc_include ../listings/ch05-using-structs-to-structure-related-data/listing-05-07/src/main.rs:here}}
```

<span class="caption">Listing 5-7: Using struct update syntax to set a new
`email` value for a `User` instance but use the rest of the values from
`user1`</span>

The code in Listing 5-7 also creates an instance in `user2` that has a
different value for `email` but has the same values for the `username`,
`active`, and `sign_in_count` fields from `user1`. The `..user1` must come last
to specify that any remaining fields should get their values from the
corresponding fields in `user1`, but we can choose to specify values for as
many fields as we want in any order, regardless of the order of the fields in
the struct’s definition.

Note that the struct update syntax uses `=` like an assignment; this is
because it moves the data, just as we saw in the [“Ways Variables and Data
Interact: Move”][move]<!-- ignore --> section. In this example, we can no
longer use `user1` after creating `user2` because the `String` in the
`username` field of `user1` was moved into `user2`. If we had given `user2` new
`String` values for both `email` and `username`, and thus only used the
`active` and `sign_in_count` values from `user1`, then `user1` would still be
valid after creating `user2`. The types of `active` and `sign_in_count` are
types that implement the `Copy` trait, so the behavior we discussed in the
[“Stack-Only Data: Copy”][copy]<!-- ignore --> section would apply.

### Using Tuple Structs without Named Fields to Create Different Types

Rust also supports structs that look similar to tuples, called *tuple
structs*. Tuple structs have the added meaning the struct name provides but
don’t have names associated with their fields; rather, they just have the types
of the fields. Tuple structs are useful when you want to give the whole tuple a
name and make the tuple a different type from other tuples, and when naming each
field as in a regular struct would be verbose or redundant.

To define a tuple struct, start with the `struct` keyword and the struct name
followed by the types in the tuple. For example, here we define and use
two tuple structs named `Color` and `Point`:

```rust
{{#rustdoc_include ../listings/ch05-using-structs-to-structure-related-data/no-listing-01-tuple-structs/src/main.rs}}
```

Note that the `black` and `origin` values are different types, because they’re
instances of different tuple structs. Each struct you define is its own type,
even though the fields within the struct might have the same types. For
example, a function that takes a parameter of type `Color` cannot take a
`Point` as an argument, even though both types are made up of three `i32`
values. Otherwise, tuple struct instances are similar to tuples in that you can
destructure them into their individual pieces, and you can use a `.` followed
by the index to access an individual value.

### Unit-Like Structs Without Any Fields

You can also define structs that don’t have any fields! These are called
*unit-like structs* because they behave similarly to `()`, the unit type that
we mentioned in [“The Tuple Type”][tuples]<!-- ignore --> section. Unit-like
structs can be useful when you need to implement a trait on some type but don’t
have any data that you want to store in the type itself. We’ll discuss traits
in Chapter 10. Here’s an example of declaring and instantiating a unit struct
named `AlwaysEqual`:

```rust
{{#rustdoc_include ../listings/ch05-using-structs-to-structure-related-data/no-listing-04-unit-like-structs/src/main.rs}}
```

To define `AlwaysEqual`, we use the `struct` keyword, the name we want, then a
semicolon. No need for curly brackets or parentheses! Then we can get an
instance of `AlwaysEqual` in the `subject` variable in a similar way: using the
name we defined, without any curly brackets or parentheses. Imagine that later
we’ll implement behavior for this type such that every instance of
`AlwaysEqual` is always equal to every instance of any other type, perhaps to
have a known result for testing purposes. We wouldn’t need any data to
implement that behavior! You’ll see in Chapter 10 how to define traits and
implement them on any type, including unit-like structs.

> ### Ownership of Struct Data
>
> In the `User` struct definition in Listing 5-1, we used the owned `String`
> type rather than the `&str` string slice type. This is a deliberate choice
> because we want each instance of this struct to own all of its data and for
> that data to be valid for as long as the entire struct is valid.
>
> It’s also possible for structs to store references to data owned by something
> else, but to do so requires the use of *lifetimes*, a Rust feature that we’ll
> discuss in Chapter 10. Lifetimes ensure that the data referenced by a struct
> is valid for as long as the struct is. Let’s say you try to store a reference
> in a struct without specifying lifetimes, like the following; this won’t work:
>
> <span class="filename">Filename: src/main.rs</span>
>
> <!-- CAN'T EXTRACT SEE https://github.com/rust-lang/mdBook/issues/1127 -->
>
> ```rust,ignore,does_not_compile
> struct User {
>     active: bool,
>     username: &str,
>     email: &str,
>     sign_in_count: u64,
> }
>
> fn main() {
>     let user1 = User {
>         email: "someone@example.com",
>         username: "someusername123",
>         active: true,
>         sign_in_count: 1,
>     };
> }
> ```
>
> The compiler will complain that it needs lifetime specifiers:
>
> ```console
> $ cargo run
>    Compiling structs v0.1.0 (file:///projects/structs)
> error[E0106]: missing lifetime specifier
>  --> src/main.rs:3:15
>   |
> 3 |     username: &str,
>   |               ^ expected named lifetime parameter
>   |
> help: consider introducing a named lifetime parameter
>   |
> 1 ~ struct User<'a> {
> 2 |     active: bool,
> 3 ~     username: &'a str,
>   |
>
> error[E0106]: missing lifetime specifier
>  --> src/main.rs:4:12
>   |
> 4 |     email: &str,
>   |            ^ expected named lifetime parameter
>   |
> help: consider introducing a named lifetime parameter
>   |
> 1 ~ struct User<'a> {
> 2 |     active: bool,
> 3 |     username: &str,
> 4 ~     email: &'a str,
>   |
>
> For more information about this error, try `rustc --explain E0106`.
> error: could not compile `structs` due to 2 previous errors
> ```
>
> In Chapter 10, we’ll discuss how to fix these errors so you can store
> references in structs, but for now, we’ll fix errors like these using owned
> types like `String` instead of references like `&str`.

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[tuples]: ch03-02-data-types.html#the-tuple-type
[move]: ch04-01-what-is-ownership.html#ways-variables-and-data-interact-move
[copy]: ch04-01-what-is-ownership.html#stack-only-data-copy