# Objective
In current Bevy, it is very inconvenient to mutably retrieve a
user-provided list of entities more than one element at a time.
If the list contains any duplicate entities, we risk mutable aliasing.
Users of `Query::iter_many_mut` do not have access to `Iterator` trait,
and thus miss out on common functionality, for instance collecting their
`QueryManyIter`.
We can circumvent this issue with validation, however that entails
checking every entity against all others for inequality, or utilizing an
`EntityHashSet`. Even if an entity list remains unchanged, this
validation is/would have to be redone every time we wish to fetch with
the list.
This presents a lot of wasted work, as we often trivially know an entity
list to be unique f.e.: `QueryIter` will fetch every `Entity` once and
only once.
As more things become entities – assets, components, queries – this
issue will become more pronounced.
`get_many`/`many`/`iter_many`/`par_iter_many`-like functionality is all
affected.
## Solution
The solution this PR proposes is to introduce functionality built around
a new trait: `EntitySet`.
The goal is to preserve the property of "uniqueness" in a list wherever
possible, and then rely on it as a bound within new `*_many_unique`
methods to avoid the need for validation.
This is achieved using `Iterator`:
`EntitySet` is blanket implemented for any `T` that implements
`IntoIterator<IntoIter: EntitySetIterator>`.
`EntitySetIterator` is the unsafe trait that actually guarantees an
iterator to be "unique" via its safety contract.
We define an "Iterator over unique entities" as: "No two entities
returned by the iterator may compare equal."
For iterators that cannot return more than 1 element, this is trivially
true.
Whether an iterator can satisfy this is up to the `EntitySetIterator`
implementor to ensure, hence the unsafe.
However, this is not yet a complete solution. Looking at the signature
of `iter_many`, we find that `IntoIterator::Item` is not `Entity`, but
is instead bounded by the `Borrow<Entity>` trait. That is because
iteration without consuming the collection will often yield us
references, not owned items.
`Borrow<Entity>` presents an issue: The `Borrow` docs state that `x = y`
should equal `x.borrow() = y.borrow()`, but unsafe cannot rely on this
for soundness. We run into similar problems with other trait
implementations of any `Borrow<Entity>` type: `PartialEq`, `Eq`,
`PartialOrd`, `Ord`, `Hash`, `Clone`, `Borrow`, and `BorrowMut`.
This PR solves this with the unsafe `TrustedEntityBorrow` trait:
Any implementor promises that the behavior of the aforementioned traits
matches that of the underlying entity.
While `Borrow<Entity>` was the inspiration, we use our own counterpart
trait `EntityBorrow` as the supertrait to `TrustedEntityBorrow`, so we
can circumvent the limitations of the existing `Borrow<T>` blanket
impls.
All together, these traits allow us to implement `*_many_unique`
functionality with a lone `EntitySet` bound.
`EntitySetIterator` is implemented for all the std iterators and
iterator adapters that guarantee or preserve uniqueness, so we can
filter, skip, take, step, reverse, ... our unique entity iterators
without worry!
Sadly, current `HashSet` iterators do not carry the necessary type
information with them to determine whether the source `HashSet` produces
logic errors; A malicious `Hasher` could compromise a `HashSet`.
`HashSet` iteration is generally discouraged in the first place, so we
also exclude the set operation iterators, even though they do carry the
`Hasher` type parameter.
`BTreeSet` implements `EntitySet` without any problems.
If an iterator type cannot guarantee uniqueness at compile time, then a
user can still attach `EntitySetIterator` to an individual instance of
that type via `UniqueEntityIter::from_iterator_unchecked`.
With this, custom types can use `UniqueEntityIter<I>` as their
`IntoIterator::IntoIter` type, if necessary.
This PR is focused on the base concept, and expansions on it are left
for follow-up PRs. See "Potential Future Work" below.
## Testing
Doctests on `iter_many_unique`/`iter_many_unique_mut` + 2 tests in
entity_set.rs.
## Showcase
```rust
// Before:
fn system(player_list: Res<SomeUniquePlayerList>, players: Query<&mut Player>) {
let value = 0;
while let Some(player) = players.iter_many_mut(player_list).fetch_next() {
value += mem::take(player.value_mut())
}
}
// After:
fn system(player_list: Res<SomeUniquePlayerList>, players: Query<&mut Player>) {
let value = players
.iter_many_unique_mut(player_list)
.map(|player| mem::take(player.value_mut()))
.sum();
}
```
## Changelog
- added `EntityBorrow`, `TrustedEntityBorrow`, `EntitySet` and
`EntitySetIterator` traits
- added `iter_many_unique`, `iter_many_unique_mut`,
`iter_many_unique_unsafe` methods on `Query`
- added `iter_many_unique`, `iter_many_unique_mut`,
`iter_many_unique_manual` and `iter_many_unique_unchecked_manual`
methods on `QueryState`
- added corresponding `QueryManyUniqueIter`
- added `UniqueEntityIter`
## Migration Guide
Any custom type used as a `Borrow<Entity>` entity list item for an
`iter_many` method now has to implement `EntityBorrow` instead. Any type
that implements `Borrow<Entity>` can trivially implement `EntityBorrow`.
## Potential Future Work
- `ToEntitySet` trait for converting any entity iterator into an
`EntitySetIterator`
- `EntityIndexSet/Map` to tie in hashing with `EntitySet`
- add `EntityIndexSetSlice/MapSlice`
- requires: `EntityIndexSet/Map`
- Implementing `par_iter_many_unique_mut` for parallel mutable iteration
- requires: `par_iter_many`
- allow collecting into `UniqueEntityVec` to store entity sets
- add `UniqueEntitySlice`s
- Doesn't require, but should be done after: `UniqueEntityVec`
- add `UniqueEntityArray`s
- Doesn't require, but should be done after: `UniqueEntitySlice`
- `get_many_unique`/`many_unique` methods
- requires: `UniqueEntityArray`
- `World::entity_unique` to match `World::entity` methods
- Doesn't require, but makes sense after:
`get_many_unique`/`many_unique`
- implement `TrustedEntityBorrow` for the `EntityRef` family
- Doesn't require, but makes sense after: `UniqueEntityVec`
a4b89d0d5e