Function signature for returning a recursive closure

Question

I am attempting to implement a function that returns a recursive closure., though I am not sure how to express that in the function signature. Here is example code of a working implementation in Python

def counter(state):
    def handler(msg):
        if msg == 'inc':
            print state
            return counter(state + 1)

        if msg == 'dec':
            print state
            return counter(state - 1)
    return handler

c = counter(1)
for x in range(1000000):
    c = c('inc')

and pseudo code for Rust.

enum Msg {
    Inc,
    Dec
}

fn counter(state: Int) -> ? {
    move |msg| match msg {
        Msg::Inc => counter(state + 1),
        Msg::Dec => counter(state - 1),
    }
}

Answer 1

Because Rust supports recursive types, you just need to encode the recursion in a separate structure:

enum Msg { 
    Inc,
    Dec,
}

// in this particular example Fn(Msg) -> F should work as well
struct F(Box<FnMut(Msg) -> F>);

fn counter(state: i32) -> F {
    F(Box::new(move |msg| match msg {
        Msg::Inc => {
            println!("{}", state);
            counter(state + 1)
        }
        Msg::Dec => {
            println!("{}", state);
            counter(state - 1)
        }
    }))
}

fn main() {
    let mut c = counter(1);
    for _ in 0..1000 {
        c = c.0(Msg::Inc);
    }
}

We cannot do away with boxing here, unfortunately - since unboxed closures have unnameable types, we need to box them into a trait object to be able to name them inside the structure declaration.