this post was submitted on 12 Jul 2025
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Patterns for Modeling Overlapping Variant Data in Rust (mcmah309.github.io)
submitted 1 day ago by shape_warrior_t@programming.dev to c/rust@programming.dev
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An interesting article that lays out a problem and goes through a few different solutions, some of which I haven't thought about much before.

I'm working on a video game in Rust, and I'm running into this kind of modelling problem when it comes to keeping track of the game state. So far I've refactored something that resembles Approach 5 into something that looks more like Approach 3. As I get more confident about the final shape of the data, it (seemingly) becomes a better idea to represent it in a more structured way.

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[โ€“] BB_C@programming.dev 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I only skimmed this. But my mind from the start immediately went to

struct CommonData {
 // common fields
}

enum VariantData {
  Variant1 {
    // Variant1 specific fields
  },
  // same for other variants
}

struct Search {
  common: CommonData,
  variant: VariantData,
}

but I reached the end and didn't see it.

Isn't this the way that comes to mind first for others too?

[โ€“] tatterdemalion@programming.dev 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

It's approach 2