[Yoric]

> A `union(TagType)` in Zig is a tagged union and has safety checks on all accesses in debug mode. It is directly comparable to a Rust enum. Any differences are probably more down to the ways you are expected to access them and Rust's stronger pattern matching probably helps some here.

But if I understand correctly, out-of-the-box, Zig's `union` doesn't get a tag type, right? That's what I meant by Rust's `enum` being safer: you can use it safely in Zig, but you have to actually request safety, because that's not the default behavior.

I probably should have phrased it differently, though.

And the "more powerful" is about the fact that a Rust enum can actually carry data, while it doesn't seem to be the case with Zig.

>> I don't see smart pointers in Zig, and more generally, I have no idea how to deallocate memory in Zig. > >You would use a memory allocator as mentioned above and use the `create` and `destroy` functions for a single item, or `alloc` and `free` for an array of items. Memory allocation/deallocation doesn't exist at the language level.

So, it sounds like deallocations are not checked by default, right?

> I know Andrew wants to write an async web-server example set up multiplexing coroutines onto a thread-pool, as an example.

That would be a nice example, for sure!

[tiehuis]

> But if I understand correctly, out-of-the-box, Zig's `union` doesn't get a tag type, right? That's what I meant by Rust's `enum` being safer: you can use it safely in Zig, but you have to actually request safety, because that's not the default behavior.

Sure. I think that's more an effect of the choice of keyword defaults here. A straight union is very uncommon and is typically solely for C interoperability.

> And the "more powerful" is about the fact that a Rust enum can actually carry data, while it doesn't seem to be the case with Zig.

A tagged union can store data as in Rust. See the examples in the documentation [1]. Admittedly Rust's pattern matching is nicer to work with here.

To summarise the concepts:

- `enum` is a straight enumeration with no payload. The backing tag type can be specified (e.g. enum(u2)).

- `union` is an unchecked sum type, similar to a c union without a tag field.

- `union(TagType)` is a sum type with a tag field, analagous to a Rust enum . A `union(enum)` is simply shorthand to infer the underlying TagType.

> So, it sounds like deallocations are not checked by default, right?

If referring to if objects are guaranteed to be deallocated when out of scope then no, this isn't checked. There are a few active issues regarding some improvements to resource management but it probably won't result in any automatic RAII-like functionality. This is a manual step using defer right now.

[1] https://ziglang.org/documentation/master/#union

[Yoric]

> Sure. I think that's more an effect of the choice of keyword defaults here. A straight union is very uncommon and is typically solely for C interoperability.

Fair enough. That's why Rust also has a `union` keyword, which is always `unsafe`.

> A tagged union can store data as in Rust. See the examples in the documentation [1]. Admittedly Rust's pattern matching is nicer to work with here.

Ah, right, it could be any struct instead of being a bool or integer. I missed that.

> If referring to if objects are guaranteed to be deallocated when out of scope then no, this isn't checked.

I was wondering about that and double-deallocations.

> There are a few active issues regarding some improvements to resource management but it probably won't result in any automatic RAII-like functionality.

Out of curiosity, what kind of improvements?

[AnIdiotOnTheNet]

> - `union` is an unchecked sum type, similar to a c union without a tag field.

My understanding was that Zig unions are tagged, but if you don't explicitly specify the tag type the compiler will choose for you. Indeed, the first example in the documentation suggests normal unions are tagged:

  // A union has only 1 active field at a time.
  const Payload = union {
      Int: i64,
      Float: f64,
      Bool: bool,
  };
  test "simple union" {
      var payload = Payload {.Int = 1234};
      // payload.Float = 12.34; // ERROR! field not active
      assert(payload.Int == 1234);
      // You can activate another field by assigning the entire union.
      payload = Payload {.Float = 12.34};
      assert(payload.Float == 12.34);
  }

Or do straight unions only get a hidden tag for debug/safe builds? My memory is a little fuzzy.