`positions()` method for slices, or iterators in general

libs
1

I recently came across a situation where I wanted to get the indices of each occurrence of a value in a slice. Basically, something like str.match_indices, but for a &[u8]. I was surprised to learn that there wasn’t anything like that in the standard library. The best thing I could find would be to do something like

slice.iter().enumerate().filter(|(_,x)| x == needle).map(|(i,_)| i)

I expected there to be something like

slice.iter().positions(|x| x == needle)

Do you think a positions method should be added to Iterator in the standard library? Or to slice? If so, I’d be happy to make a PR and/or RFC.

  • Include Iterator.positions to standard library
  • Add slice.positions to standard library
  • This doesn’t belong in the standard library

0 voters

Show results
2

There’s an issue open on itertools to add exactly this method to it: https://github.com/bluss/rust-itertools/issues/218

I think it would be best to see how much it gets used in practice before deciding to add that method, which is just syntactic sugar for a combination of methods and which can’t be improved over the default impl for any implementation

3 Likes
3

Looks like came up with the same idea at the same time… we have the interest needed to put it into itertools! (I voted std. lib. anyway.)

4

This topic was automatically closed 90 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.