Help With Converting C++ code to rust using trait

[dash2507]

Hello,
I am converting the below C++ snippet to Rust. My solution was to create
a trait AccessorTrait and create two structs MultiDimensionalTensorAccessor and SingleDimensionalTensorAccessor and both of them can implement AccessorTrait. and it seems I couldn't figure out how to create a method get(index: usize) in the trait similar to operator[] which can be used with both structs.

template <typename T,
          size_t N,
          template <typename U> class PtrTraits = DefaultPtrTraits,
          typename index_t = int64_t>
class TensorAccessorBase {
 public:
  typedef typename PtrTraits<T>::PtrType PtrType;
  TensorAccessorBase(PtrType data_, const index_t* strides_)
      : data_(data_), strides_(strides_) {}

 protected:
  PtrType data_;
  const index_t* strides_;
};

// This can be implemented as MultiDimensionalTensorAccessor<const N> 
// because it has N > 1.
template <typename T,
          size_t N,
          template <typename U> class PtrTraits = DefaultPtrTraits,
          typename index_t = int64_t>
class TensorAccessor : public TensorAccessorBase<T, N, PtrTraits, index_t> {
 public:
  typedef typename PtrTraits<T>::PtrType PtrType;
  TensorAccessor(PtrType data_, const index_t* strides_)
      : TensorAccessorBase<T, N, PtrTraits, index_t>(data_, strides_) {}
      
  // Indexing this returns a TensorAccessor with N-1 as a generic argument. In rust
  // if N-1 > 1 it returns MultiDimensionalTensorAccessor<const N-1> 
  // else SingleDimensionalTensorAccessor if N-1 = 1.
  TensorAccessor<T, N - 1, PtrTraits, index_t> operator[](index_t i) {
    return TensorAccessor<T, N - 1, PtrTraits, index_t>(
        this->data_ + this->strides_[0] * i, this->strides_ + 1);
  }
};

 // This can be implemented as SingleDimensionalTensorAccessor.
template <typename T, 
           template <typename U> class PtrTraits, 
           typename index_t>
class TensorAccessor<T, 1, PtrTraits, index_t>
    : public TensorAccessorBase<T, 1, PtrTraits, index_t> {
 public:
  typedef typename PtrTraits<T>::PtrType PtrType;
  TensorAccessor(PtrType data_, const index_t* strides_)
      : TensorAccessorBase<T, 1, PtrTraits, index_t>(data_, strides_) {}
  
  // Here it only returns T.
  T& operator[](index_t i) { return this->data_[this->strides_[0] * i]; }
};

Any help will save my day. Thank you!

[arnaudgolfouse]

I don't know if this is what you're asking for, but the trait std::ops::Index would be the Rust's equivalent of operator[] in C++.
You can also ask that AccessorTrait depends on Index if that is what you want:

trait AccessorTrait: std::ops::Index<usize> {
    // ...
}

[dash2507]

I want to return a new struct instance from the get method, not a reference. That's why I choose to create a new method for indexing.

[arnaudgolfouse]

Ah ok... So you want the indexing operation on MultiDimensionalTensorAccessor<N> to return MultiDimensionalTensorAccessor<N - 1> if N > 1, and SingleDimensionalTensorAccessor if N == 1, right ? (omitting type parameters...)
Then this might be feasible with some type-level magic:

Rust Playground

Bonus, it does not need const generics, and so works on stable !
On the other hand, this is kind of awkward to manipulate...

If it isn't what you want, could I see what your current implementation looks like ? (I probably should have asked before... )