Identity shim functions: avoiding the box allocation

In the previous section, we explained how the default "shim" created for an async fn allocates Box to store the future; this Box is then converted to a dynx Future when it is returned. Using Box is a convenient default, but of course it's not always the right choice: for this reason, you can customize what kind of shim using an attribute, #[dyn], attached to the method in the impl:

#[dyn(box)] -- requests the default strategy, allocating a box
#[dyn(identity)] -- requests a shim that just converts the returned future into a dynx. The returned future must be of a suitable pointer type (more on that in the next section).

An impl of AsyncIterator that uses the default boxing strategy explicitly would look like this:

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

    #[dyn(box)]
    async fn next(&mut self) { /* same as above */ }
}
}

If we want to avoid the box, we can instead write an impl for AsyncIterator that uses dyn(identity). In this case, the impl is responsible for converting the impl Future return value into a an appropriate pointer from which a dynx can be constructed. For example, suppose that we are ok with allocating a Box, but we want to do it from a custom allocator. What we would like is an adapter InAllocator<I> which adapts some I: AsyncIterator so that its futures are boxed in a particular allocator. You would use it like this:

#![allow(unused)]
fn main() {
fn example<A: Allocator>(allocator: A) {
    let mut iter = InAllocator::new(allocator, YieldingRangeIterator::new();
    fn_that_takes_dyn(&mut iter);
}

fn fn_that_takes_dyn(x: &mut dyn AsyncIterator) {
    // This call will go into the `InAllocator<YieldingRangeIterator>` and
    // hence will allocate a box using the custom allocator `A`:
    let value = x.next().await;
}
}

To implement InAllocator<I>, we first define the struct itself:

#![allow(unused)]
fn main() {
struct InAllocator<A: Allocator, I: AsyncIterator> {
    allocator: A,
    iterator: I,
}

impl<A: Allocator, I: AsyncIterator> InAllocator<A, I> {
    pub fn new(
        allocator: A,
        iterator: I,
    ) -> Self {
        Self { allocator, iterator }
    }
}
}

and then we implement AsyncIterator for InAllocator<..>, annotating the next method with #[dyn(identity)]. The next method

#![allow(unused)]
fn main() {
impl<A, I> AsyncIterator for InAllocator<A, I>
where
    A: Allocator + Clone, 
    I: AsyncIterator,
{
    type Item = u32;

    #[dyn(identity)]
    fn next(&mut self) -> Pin<Box<I::next, A>> {
        let future = self.iterator.next();
        Pin::from(Box::new_in(future, self.allocator.clone()))
    }
}
}

async fn fundamentals initiative

Identity shim functions: avoiding the box allocation