async-let

This crate implements async-let as a #[no_std], no-unsafe, no-panic, minimal-overhead library.

Async-let is an experiment based on Conrad Ludgate's musings from https://conradludgate.com/posts/async-let, which proposes a syntax that allows futures to be run "in the background" without spawning additional tasks. The general behavior of async-let is that the following (fictitious) syntax

async let metadata = client.request_metadata();

will mark a future as a background future. Any await point between the binding and data.await will poll data as well as the future being awaited.

// `metadata` is marked as a background future here
async let metadata = client.request_metadata();

// both `data` and `metadata` are polled while awaiting `data`
let data = client.request_data().await;

// unmark `metadata` as a background future and await it
let metadata = metadata.await;

Using this crate's API, the above can be written like this.

// create a group that will drive the background futures
let group = async_let::Group::new();

// mark `metadata` as a background future by attaching it to the group
let metadata = pin!(client.request_metadata());
let (metadata, group) = group.attach(metadata);

// await `data` using the group, which polls the background futures
let data = group.wait_for(client.request_data()).await;

// detach `metadata` from the group and await it
let (metadata, group) = group.detach_and_wait_for(metadata).await;

API

The main types this crate offers are Group<List>, a type that manages manages driving a statically typed List of background futures; and Handle<Fut>, an abstract handle that represents the capability to extract a background future of type Fut. The attach method adds a future to the list of background futures, the detach method removes a future, and the wait_for method produces a future that will poll the background futures when it is polled.

To minimize the overhead of tracking background futures, each Group is associated with a fixed set of futures. Attaching a future to a group or detaching a future from a group consumes the group and produces a new group with the future added to or removed from the set of background futures, respectively.

Limitations

In the quest for minimal overhead, several tradeoffs were made.

• Ergonomics: while the API was made to be as ergonomic as possible, callers are still required to manually add and remove futures, thread the group through each operation, and locally pin futures explicitly.
• Pinning: Because a group stores its list of futures inline, the stored futures must be Unpin. Futures that require pinning must be stored behind an indirection, such as with pin! or Box::pin.
• Lifetimes: a group is necessarily moved when a future is attached or detached. If a future is attached in a nested scope, it must be detached before leaving that scope, or else the group (and all its attached futures) will be made inaccessible.
• Branching: because the set of futures is statically tracked, it is not possible to attach a future in only one branch of a condtional if one wishes the group to remain accessible after the conditional. Futures of different types may be attached to the same location in a group by erasing the type of the attached future to dyn Future<Output = X>, but this has its limitations.