Using dyn without allocation

In the previous chapter, we showed how you can invoke async methods from a dyn Trait value in a natural fashion. In those examples, though, we assume that it was ok to allocate a Box for every call to an async function. For most applications, this is true, but for some applications, it is not. This could be because they intend to run in a kernel or embedded context, where no allocator is available, or it could be because of a very tight loop in which allocation introduces too much overhead. The good news is that our design allows you to avoid using Box, though it does take a bit of work on your part.

In general, functions that accept a &dyn Trait as argument don't control how memory is allocated. So the count function that we saw before can be used equally well on a no-std or kernel platform:

#![allow(unused)]
fn main() {
async fn count(iter: &mut dyn AsyncIterator) {
    // Whether or not `iter.next()` will allocate a box
    // depends on the underlying type; this `count` fn
    // doesn't have to know, and so it works equally
    // well in a no-std or std environment.
    ...
}
}

The decision about whether to use box or some other way of returning a future is made by the type implementing the async trait. In the previous example, the type was YieldingRangeIterator, and its impl didn't make any kind of explicit choice, and thus the default is that it will allocate a Box:

#![allow(unused)]
fn main() {
impl AsyncIterator for YieldingRangeIterator {
    type Item = u32;

    async fn next(&mut self) {
        // The default behavior here is to allocate a `Box`
        // when `next` is called through a `dyn AsyncIterator`
        // (no `Box` is allocated when `next` is called through
        // static dispatch, in that case the future itself is
        // returned.)
        ...
    }
}
}

If you want to use YieldingRangeIterator in a context without Box, you can do that by wrapping it in an adapter type. This adapter type will implement an alternative memory allocation strategy, such as using pre-allocated stack storage.

For the most part, there is no need to implement your own adapter type, beacuse the dyner crate (to be published by rust-lang) includes a number of useful ones. For example, to pre-allocate the next future on the stack, which is useful both for performance or no-std scenarios, you could use an "inline" adapter type, like the InlineAsyncIterator type provided by the dyner crate:

#![allow(unused)]
fn main() {
use dyner::InlineAsyncIterator;
//         ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
//         Inline adapter type

async fn count_range(mut x: YieldingRangeIterator) -> usize {
    // allocates stack space for the `next` future:
    let inline_x = InlineAsyncIterator::new(x); 
    
    // invoke the `count` fn, which will no use that stack space
    // when it runs
    count(&mut inline_x).await
}
}

Dyner provides some other strategies, such as the CachedAsyncIterator (which caches the returned Box and re-uses the memory in between calls) and the BoxInAllocatorAsyncIterator (which uses a Box, but with a custom allocator).

How you apply an existing "adapter" strategy to your own traits

The InlineAsyncIterator adapts an AsyncIterator to pre-allocate stack space for the returned futures, but what if you want to apply that inline stategy to one of your traits? You can do that by using the #[inline_adapter] attribute macro applied to your trait definition:

#![allow(unused)]
fn main() {
#[inline_adapter(InlineMyTrait)]
trait MyTrait {
    async fn some_function(&mut self);
}
}

This will create an adapter type called InlineMyTrait (the name is given as an argument to the attribute macro). You would then use it by invoking new:

#![allow(unused)]
fn main() {
fn foo(x: impl MyTrait) {
    let mut w = InlineMyTrait::new(x);
    bar(&mut w);
}

fn bar(x: &mut dyn MyTrait) {
    x.some_function();
}
}

If the trait is not defined in your crate, and hence you cannot use an attribute macro, you can use this alternate form, but it requires copying the trait definition:

#![allow(unused)]
fn main() {
dyner::inline::adapter_struct! {
    struct InlineAsyncIterator for trait MyTrait {
        async fn foo(&mut self);
    }
}
}