Using a macro to initialize a big array of non-Copy elements

Question

I\'m trying to initialize a big array of elements with the same initializer. 64 elements is just an example — I want to make it at least 16k. Unfortunately a simple

Answer 1

A "safe" implementation which runs on stable, heavily inspired by Reddit:

// #![feature(core_intrinsics)]
// use std::ptr;
use std::mem;
use std::mem::MaybeUninit;

type MyStructValue = Vec;
type UsizeToVecBuilder = Box Vec>;

#[derive(Debug)]
struct MyStruct {
    value: MyStructValue,
}

macro_rules! make_array {
    ([$t:ident; $n:expr], $constructor:expr, $builder:expr) => {{
        let mut data: [MaybeUninit<$t>; $n] = unsafe { MaybeUninit::uninit().assume_init() };

        let mut i: usize = 0;
        for elem in &mut data[..] {
            *elem = MaybeUninit::new($constructor(i, $builder));
            i += 1;
        }

        unsafe { mem::transmute::<_, [$t; $n]>(data) }
    }};
}

fn main() {
    println!(
        "{:?}",
        make_array!(
            [MyStruct; 5],
            |i, b: UsizeToVecBuilder| MyStruct { value: b(i) },
            Box::new(|i| (0..i + 1).collect())
        )
    );
}

// unstable version: (see reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/rust/comments/29ymbx/a_macro_to_fill_a_fixed_length_array/)
//
// macro_rules! make_array {
//     ($n:expr, $constructor:expr) => {{
//         let mut items: [_; $n] = unsafe { mem::uninitialized() };
//         for i in 0..$n {
//             let val = $constructor(i);
//             unsafe {
//                 std::intrinsics::volatile_copy_nonoverlapping_memory(
//                     &mut items[i], &val, 1
//                 );
//                 // ptr::copy_nonoverlapping_memory(&mut items[i], &val, 1);
//                 mem::forget(val);
//             }
//         }
//         items
//     }}
// }

// fn main() {
// unstable version:
// println!("{:?}", make_array!(5, |i| MyStruct { value: i }));
// }