Generalize moves to allow moves out of any owned content

[nikomatsakis]

This program should be legal

struct Foo {
    v: ~[uint]
}

fn make_foo() -> Foo {
    Foo { v: ~[1, 2, 3] }
}

fn main() {
    let v = make_foo().v;
    for v.each |i| { io::println(fmt!("%u", *i)); }
}

But it yields:

/Users/nmatsakis/tmp/bar.rs:10:12: 10:24 error: moving out of immutable field
/Users/nmatsakis/tmp/bar.rs:10     let v = make_foo().v;
                                           ^~~~~~~~~~~~

[nikomatsakis]

Presumably the problem here is how borrow checker treats moves out of fields contained in rvalues. But that code needs to be somewhat re-worked in general.

[nikomatsakis]

Oh, actually, this is not specific to rvalues really. It's just a generally unnecessary limitation of borrowck.

[bblum]

I'm confused why this isn't specific to rvalues. Isn't let f = make_foo(); let v = foo.v; illegal?

This seems to me like a legal special case because it could be syntax sugar for let Foo { v: v } = make_foo().

[nikomatsakis]

I am editing the title of this issue and expanding it. We should allow moves out of arbitrary owned content. Most of the system is setup for this already, I think the only problem is that borrow check flags such moves as illegal. (But there might be trans work needed to) Examples of things that ought to work but do not:

let a = b.c; // where b.c is an owned path and c has linear type
let d = e[f]; // where e is ~[T] and T is linear

In some cases these can be expressed today using match statements. I see no reason for match statements to be more expressive than other kinds of expressions; moreover, they do not allow e[f].

Currently, the moves code and liveness analysis will allow such moves. They would cause the local variables b and e above to be considered "partially moved" and thus unusable. But then the borrow checker would flag an error for moving out of something that's not a local variable.

[nikomatsakis]

@bblum your example is illegal today but I don't see any good reason for that restriction.

[graydon]

assigning bug; change assignment if you disagree

[nikomatsakis]

Some FIXMEs related to bits of code that will have to be adjusted.

[Blei]

The example program compiles and runs now. Can this be closed?

[nikomatsakis]

Yes, fixed.