nomicon/hrtb.md

% Higher-Rank Trait Bounds (HRTBs)

Rust's Fn traits are a little bit magic. For instance, we can write the
following code:

```rust
struct Closure<F> {
    data: (u8, u16),
    func: F,
}

impl<F> Closure<F>
    where F: Fn(&(u8, u16)) -> &u8,
{
    fn call(&self) -> &u8 {
        (self.func)(&self.data)
    }
}

fn do_it(data: &(u8, u16)) -> &u8 { &data.0 }

fn main() {
    let clo = Closure { data: (0, 1), func: do_it };
    println!("{}", clo.call());
}
```

If we try to naively desugar this code in the same way that we did in the
lifetimes section, we run into some trouble:

```rust
struct Closure<F> {
    data: (u8, u16),
    func: F,
}

impl<F> Closure<F>
    // where F: Fn(&'??? (u8, u16)) -> &'??? u8,
{
    fn call<'a>(&'a self) -> &'a u8 {
        (self.func)(&self.data)
    }
}

fn do_it<'b>(data: &'b (u8, u16)) -> &'b u8 { &'b data.0 }

fn main() {
    'x: {
        let clo = Closure { data: (0, 1), func: do_it };
        println!("{}", clo.call());
    }
}
```

How on earth are we supposed to express the lifetimes on F's trait bound? We need
to provide some lifetime there, but the lifetime we care about can't be named until
we enter the body of `call`! Also, that isn't some fixed lifetime; call works with
*any* lifetime `&self` happens to have at that point.

This job requires The Magic of Higher-Rank Trait Bounds. The way we desugar
this is as follows:

```rust
where for<'a> F: Fn(&'a (u8, u16)) -> &'a u8,
```

(Where `Fn(a, b, c) -> d` is itself just sugar for the unstable *real* Fn trait)

`for<'a>` can be read as "for all choices of `'a`", and basically produces an
*inifinite list* of trait bounds that F must satisfy. Intense. There aren't many
places outside of the Fn traits where we encounter HRTBs, and even for those we
have a nice magic sugar for the common cases.