Trait Display

pub trait Display: PointeeSized

Format trait for an empty format, {}.

Implementing this trait for a type will automatically implement the ToString trait for the type, allowing the usage of the .to_string() method. Prefer implementing the Display trait for a type, rather than ToString.

Display is similar to Debug, but Display is for user-facing output, and so cannot be derived.

For more information on formatters, see the module-level documentation.

Completeness and parseability

Display for a type might not necessarily be a lossless or complete representation of the type. It may omit internal state, precision, or other information the type does not consider important for user-facing output, as determined by the type. As such, the output of Display might not be possible to parse, and even if it is, the result of parsing might not exactly match the original value.

However, if a type has a lossless Display implementation whose output is meant to be conveniently machine-parseable and not just meant for human consumption, then the type may wish to accept the same format in FromStr, and document that usage. Having both Display and FromStr implementations where the result of Display cannot be parsed with FromStr may surprise users.

Internationalization

Because a type can only have one Display implementation, it is often preferable to only implement Display when there is a single most "obvious" way that values can be formatted as text. This could mean formatting according to the "invariant" culture and "undefined" locale, or it could mean that the type display is designed for a specific culture/locale, such as developer logs.

If not all values have a justifiably canonical textual format or if you want to support alternative formats not covered by the standard set of possible formatting traits, the most flexible approach is display adapters: methods like str::escape_default or Path::display which create a wrapper implementing Display to output the specific display format.

Examples

Implementing Display on a type:

use std::fmt;

struct Point {
    x: i32,
    y: i32,
}

impl fmt::Display for Point {
    fn fmt(&self, f: &mut fmt::Formatter<'_>) -> fmt::Result {
        write!(f, "({}, {})", self.x, self.y)
    }
}

let origin = Point { x: 0, y: 0 };

assert_eq!(format!("The origin is: {origin}"), "The origin is: (0, 0)");

Required Methods

fn fmt(&self, f: &mut Formatter<'_>) -> Result

Formats the value using the given formatter.

Errors

This function should return Err if, and only if, the provided Formatter returns Err. String formatting is considered an infallible operation; this function only returns a Result because writing to the underlying stream might fail and it must provide a way to propagate the fact that an error has occurred back up the stack.

Examples

use std::fmt;

struct Position {
    longitude: f32,
    latitude: f32,
}

impl fmt::Display for Position {
    fn fmt(&self, f: &mut fmt::Formatter<'_>) -> fmt::Result {
        write!(f, "({}, {})", self.longitude, self.latitude)
    }
}

assert_eq!(
    "(1.987, 2.983)",
    format!("{}", Position { longitude: 1.987, latitude: 2.983, }),
);

Implementors