What #[derive(Add)] generates

• 1 Tuple structs
• 2 Regular structs
• 3 Enums

The derived Add implementation will allow two structs from the same type to be added together. This done by adding their respective fields together and creating a new struct with those values. For enums each variant can be added in a similar way to another instance of that same variant. There’s one big difference however, it returns a Result<EnumType>, because an error is returned when to different variants are added together.

1 Tuple structs

When deriving Add for a tuple struct with two fields like this:

#[derive(Add)]
struct MyInts(i32, i32);

Code like this will be generated:

impl ::core::ops::Add for MyInts {
    type Output = MyInts;
    fn add(self, rhs: MyInts) -> MyInts {
        MyInts(self.0.add(rhs.0), self.1.add(rhs.1))
    }
}

The behaviour is similar with more or less fields.

2 Regular structs

When deriving Add for a regular struct with two fields like this:

#[derive(Add)]
struct Point2D {
    x: i32,
    y: i32,
}

Code like this will be generated:

impl ::core::ops::Add for Point2D {
    type Output = Point2D;
    fn add(self, rhs: Point2D) -> Point2D {
        Point2D {
            x: self.x.add(rhs.x),
            y: self.y.add(rhs.y),
        }
    }
}

The behaviour is similar for more or less fields.

3 Enums

There’s a big difference between the code that is generated for the two struct types and the one that is generated for enums. The code for enums returns Result<EnumType> instead of an EnumType itself. This is because adding an enum to another enum is only possible if both are the same variant. This makes the generated code much more complex as well, because this check needs to be done. For instance when deriving Add for an enum like this:

#[derive(Add)]
enum MixedInts {
    SmallInt(i32),
    BigInt(i64),
    TwoSmallInts(i32, i32),
    NamedSmallInts { x: i32, y: i32 },
    UnsignedOne(u32),
    UnsignedTwo(u32),
    Unit,
}

Code like this will be generated:

impl ::core::ops::Add for MixedInts {
    type Output = Result<MixedInts, &'static str>;
    fn add(self, rhs: MixedInts) -> Result<MixedInts, &'static str> {
        match (self, rhs) {
            (MixedInts::SmallInt(__l_0), MixedInts::SmallInt(__r_0)) => {
                Ok(MixedInts::SmallInt(__l_0.add(__r_0)))
            }
            (MixedInts::BigInt(__l_0), MixedInts::BigInt(__r_0)) => {
                Ok(MixedInts::BigInt(__l_0.add(__r_0)))
            }
            (MixedInts::TwoSmallInts(__l_0, __l_1), MixedInts::TwoSmallInts(__r_0, __r_1)) => {
                Ok(MixedInts::TwoSmallInts(__l_0.add(__r_0), __l_1.add(__r_1)))
            }
            (MixedInts::NamedSmallInts { x: __l_0, y: __l_1 },
             MixedInts::NamedSmallInts { x: __r_0, y: __r_1 }) => {
                Ok(MixedInts::NamedSmallInts {
                    x: __l_0.add(__r_0),
                    y: __l_1.add(__r_1),
                })
            }
            (MixedInts::UnsignedOne(__l_0), MixedInts::UnsignedOne(__r_0)) => {
                Ok(MixedInts::UnsignedOne(__l_0.add(__r_0)))
            }
            (MixedInts::UnsignedTwo(__l_0), MixedInts::UnsignedTwo(__r_0)) => {
                Ok(MixedInts::UnsignedTwo(__l_0.add(__r_0)))
            }
            (MixedInts::Unit, MixedInts::Unit) => Err("Cannot add() unit variants"),
            _ => Err("Trying to add mismatched enum variants"),
        }
    }
}

Also note the Unit type that throws an error when adding it to itself.