}
// Now we can write `vec_min`.
-//@ However, in order to make it type-check, we have to make a full (deep) copy of e by calling `clone()`.
fn vec_min(v: &Vec<BigInt>) -> Option<BigInt> {
let mut min: Option<BigInt> = None;
+ // If `v` is a shared borrowed vector, then the default for iterating over it is to call `iter`, the iterator that borrows the elements.
for e in v {
let e = e.clone(); /*@*/
min = Some(match min { /*@*/
}
min
}
-//@ Now, what's happening here? Why do we have to clone `e`, and why did we not
+//@ Now, what's happening here? Why do we have to to make a full (deep) copy of `e`, and why did we not
//@ have to do that in our previous version?
//@
//@ The answer is already hidden in the type of `vec_min`: `v` is just borrowed, but
//@ `e.clone()`, Rust will complain "Cannot move out of borrowed content". That's because
//@ `e` is a `&BigInt`. Assigning `min = Some(*e)` works just like a function call: Ownership of the
//@ underlying data is transferred from where `e` borrows from to `min`. But that's not allowed, since
-//@ we just borrowed `e`, so we cannot empty it! We can, however, call `clone()` on it. Then we own
+//@ we just borrowed `e`, so we cannot empty it! We can, however, call `clone` on it. Then we own
//@ the copy that was created, and hence we can store it in `min`. <br/>
//@ Of course, making such a full copy is expensive, so we'd like to avoid it. We'll some to that in the next part.
//@ `Clone`. This makes the cost explicit.
// ## Lifetimes
-//@ To fix the performance problems of `vec_min`, we need to avoid using `clone()`. We'd like
+//@ To fix the performance problems of `vec_min`, we need to avoid using `clone`. We'd like
//@ the return value to not be owned (remember that this was the source of our need for cloning), but *borrowed*.
//@ The function `head` demonstrates how that could work: It borrows the first element of a vector if it is non-empty.