Equality in rust is value equality per default, that’s what these traits are for. If you want to check pointer equality you’d use the std::ptr::eq function to check if two pointers are equal, which is rather rare in practice. You can also implement the PartialEq trait yourself if you need custom equality checks.
I worked on software at one point that had at it’s core a number of “modes” that it switched between. It was, at the time, in the process of migrating from enums and switch/case trees to an inheritance based system.
In practice this meant there was a single instance of “Mode” for each mode which used pointer equality to switch/case on modes like an enum.
To add a new mode (that did nothing) I think I had to change about 6 different places.
Equality in rust is value equality per default, that’s what these traits are for. If you want to check pointer equality you’d use the
std::ptr::eqfunction to check if two pointers are equal, which is rather rare in practice. You can also implement thePartialEqtrait yourself if you need custom equality checks.I worked on software at one point that had at it’s core a number of “modes” that it switched between. It was, at the time, in the process of migrating from enums and switch/case trees to an inheritance based system.
In practice this meant there was a single instance of “Mode” for each mode which used pointer equality to switch/case on modes like an enum.
To add a new mode (that did nothing) I think I had to change about 6 different places.
Not really related to the pointer thing, but Rust also has pattern matching based on Enums, as they’re actually sum-types and not just numbers