API: Add err_or and err_or_else to Option

[LunarLambda]

sometimes, particularly when interfacing with C libraries which provide their own errno-like API (GetLastError, SDL_GetError, etc), Rust bindings may opt to return Option<ErrorType> to model the absence of an error.

This could then be 'upgraded' to a Result<T, E>, in a manner similar to ok_or:

fn example() -> Result<(), SomeError> {
    get_some_error().err_or(())
}

pros

• fixes a papercut with error modeling and error handling
• api requires minimal consideration since it already has a stable counterpart (as well as unstable siblings: unwrap_none / expect_none Tracking issue for Option::expect_none(msg) and unwrap_none() #62633)

cons

• name looks like error, might cause confusion
• not extremely common use case? (haven't checked discussion on unwrap_none yet)

[joshtriplett]

What's the advantage of returning Option<ErrorType> rather than Result<(), ErrorType>? Semantically, the latter feels more accurate. And both are capable of handling niches in the same way.

[m-ou-se]

We discussed this briefly in the library api team meeting last week, and we'd like to see some concrete use cases. Do you have examples from some Rust crates where this Option to Result::Err conversion would be used?

[yaahc]

Closing this for now due to lack of responses with concrete use cases. Feel free to reopen in the future if you have a use case where you feel this API would be justified.

[NathanielB123]

I think I have a concrete use-case for this. I am using the insert function in HashMap<K, V> which returns Option<V> if there is already an item in the hash map. In my code, and I would argue probably most of the time, an item already being present in the hash map implies some error has occurred, and so I want to return Result<SuccessType, V>. err_or_else would be perfect for this.