Tracking: Ideas for useful helper functions

[matheus23]

I'll try keeping track of some useful helper functions to include in willow-rs.

• Some form of Range::new_exact:

  impl Range<Path> {
    fn new_exact_path(path: Path) -> Self;
  }

  An alternative for this would be:

  trait Successor { // which is actually equivalent to `trait SubspaceId` at this point.
    fn successor(&self) -> Option<Self>;
  }
  
  impl<T: Successor> Range<T> {
    fn new_exact(value: T) -> Self;
  }

• Helpers for creating Paths from arrays of bytes/strings:

  impl Path {
    fn from_bytes(&[&[u8]]) -> Self;
    fn from_strs(&[&str]) -> Self;
  }

• Helpers for printing Paths. Perhaps just a nice Path: Debug instance that interprets the path segments as utf8, if possible, or otherwise escapes to hex or similar. Alternatively something like Path::to_string(&self) -> Option<String> that tries to format using / and utf8, but fails if the path would have to be escaped.

• Easily converting an Area into a Range3d: Area::to_range3d(&self) -> Range3d. Alternatively: a From/Into instance.

• Easily converting an Area into an AreaOfInterest: AreaOfInterest::new_area(area: Area) -> Self or similar

[sgwilym]

Thank you for these suggestions, I'm agreed on all counts. I like the Successor trait, I think the only drawback would be needing a newtype to implement it on u64 for timestamps.

[matheus23]

FWIW, I personally find it just easy enough to do a Range::new_closed, if it's a Range<u64>, so I'd be fine without a newtype. (although you're risking a panic in case of an overflow)