salsa/examples/hello_world

The hello_world example is intended to walk through the very basics of a salsa setup. Here is a more detailed writeup.

Step 1: Define the database trait

The database is the central struct that holds all the state for your application. It has the current values of all your inputs, the values of any memoized queries you have executed thus far, and dependency information between them.

In your program, however, you rarely interact with the actual database struct. Instead, you interact with database traits that you define. These traits define the set of queries that you need for any given piece of code. You define them using the salsa::query_prototype! macro.

Here is a simple example of a database trait from the hello_world example. It defines exactly two queries: input_string and length. You see that the query_prototype! macro just lists out the names of the queries as methods (e.g., input_string()) and also a path to a type that will define the query (InputString). It doesn't give many other details: those are specified in the query definition that comes later.

salsa::query_prototype! {
    trait HelloWorldDatabase: salsa::Database {
        fn input_string() for InputString;
        fn length() for Length;
    }
}

Step 2: Define the queries

The actual query definitions are made using the salsa::query_definition macro. For an input query, such as input_string, these resemble a variable definition:

salsa::query_definition! {
    InputString: Map<(), Arc<String>>;
}

Here, the Map is actually a keyword -- you have to write it. The idea is that each query isn't defining a single value: they are always a mapping from some key to some value -- in this case, though, the type of the key is just the unit type () (so in a sense this is a single value). The value type would be Arc<String>.

Note that both keys and values are cloned with relative frequency, so it's a good idea to pick types that can be cheaply cloned. Also, for the incremental system to work, keys and value types must not employ "interior mutability" (no Mutex or AtomicUsize etc).

Next let's define the length query, which is a function query:

salsa::query_definition! {
    Length(db: &impl HelloWorldDatabase, _key: ()) -> usize {
        // Read the input string:
        let input_string = db.input_string().get(());

        // Return its length:
        input_string.len()
    }
}

Like the InputString query, Length has a key and a value -- but this time the type of the key is specified as the type of the second argument (_key), and the type of the value is specified from the return type (usize).

You can also see that functions take a first argument, the db, which always has the form &impl <SomeDatabaseTrait>. This db value gives access to all the other queries that are listed in the context trait that you specify.

In the first line of the function we see how we invoke a query:

let input_string = db.input_string().get(());

When you invoke db.input_string(), what you get back is called a QueryTable -- it offers a few methods that let you interact with the query. The main method you will use though is get(key) which -- given a key -- computes and returns the up-to-date value. In the case of an input query like input_string, this just returns whatever value has been set by the user (if no value has been set yet, it returns the Default::default() value; all query inputs must implement Default).

Step 3: Define the database struct that implements the database trait

The final step is to create the database struct which will implement your database trait(s). This struct combines all the parts of your system into one whole; it can also add custom state of your own (such as an interner or configuration). In our simple example though we won't do any of that. The only field that you actually need is a reference to the salsa runtime; then you must also implement the salsa::Database trait to tell salsa where to find this runtime:

#[derive(Default)]
struct DatabaseStruct {
    runtime: salsa::runtime::Runtime<DatabaseStruct>,
}

impl salsa::Database for DatabaseStruct {
    fn salsa_runtime(&self) -> &salsa::runtime::Runtime<DatabaseStruct> {
        &self.runtime
    }
}

Next, you must use the database_storage! to define the "storage struct" for your type. This storage struct contains all the hashmaps and other things that salsa uses to store the values for your queries. You won't need to interact with it directly. To use the macro, you basically list out all the traits and each of the queries within those traits:

salsa::database_storage! {
    struct DatabaseStorage for DatabaseStruct {
    //     ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^     --------------
    //     name of the type    the name of your context type
    //     we will make
        impl HelloWorldDatabase {
            fn input_string() for InputString;
            fn length() for Length;
        }
    }
}

The database_storage macro will also implement the HelloWorldDatabase trait for your query context type.

Now that we've defined our database, we can start using it:

fn main() {
    let db = DatabaseStruct::default();

    println!("Initially, the length is {}.", db.length().get(()));

    db.input_string().set((), Arc::new(format!("Hello, world")));

    println!("Now, the length is {}.", db.length().get(()));
}

And if we run this code:

> cargo run --example hello_world
   Compiling salsa v0.2.0 (/Users/nmatsakis/versioned/salsa)
    Finished dev [unoptimized + debuginfo] target(s) in 0.94s
     Running `target/debug/examples/hello_world`
Initially, the length is 0.
Now, the length is 12.

Amazing.