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Rust errors / Patterns and matching

Rust compiler error · checked with rustc 1.99.0

Rust error E0023: this pattern has 1 field, but the corresponding tuple variant has 2 fields

What it meansA pattern attempted to extract an incorrect number of fields from a variant.

What rustc prints

error[E0023]: this pattern has 1 field, but the corresponding tuple variant has 2 fields
  --> main.rs:11:18
   |
 4 |     Apple(String, String),
   |           ------  ------ tuple variant has 2 fields
...
11 |     Fruit::Apple(a) => {}, // error!
   |                  ^ expected 2 fields, found 1
   |
help: use `_` to explicitly ignore each field
   |
11 |     Fruit::Apple(a, _) => {}, // error!
   |                   +++

Real output of rustc 1.99.0 compiling the official example below (2021 edition). Your names and line numbers will differ; the first line is the part to match.

E0023Patterns and matching
Activein rustc 1.99.0
3related errors linked below

The compiler team's explanation

A pattern attempted to extract an incorrect number of fields from a variant.

Erroneous code example:

enum Fruit {
    Apple(String, String),
    Pear(u32),
}

let x = Fruit::Apple(String::new(), String::new());

match x {
    Fruit::Apple(a) => {}, // error!
    _ => {}
}

A pattern used to match against an enum variant must provide a sub-pattern for each field of the enum variant.

Here the Apple variant has two fields, and should be matched against like so:

enum Fruit {
    Apple(String, String),
    Pear(u32),
}

let x = Fruit::Apple(String::new(), String::new());

// Correct.
match x {
    Fruit::Apple(a, b) => {},
    _ => {}
}

Matching with the wrong number of fields has no sensible interpretation:

enum Fruit {
    Apple(String, String),
    Pear(u32),
}

let x = Fruit::Apple(String::new(), String::new());

// Incorrect.
match x {
    Fruit::Apple(a) => {},
    Fruit::Apple(a, b, c) => {},
}

Check how many fields the enum was declared with and ensure that your pattern uses the same number.

From rustc --explain E0023 (1.99.0), part of the Rust project, MIT or Apache-2.0. Official page.

Related errors

All 518 Rust error codes · Rust crate data · Glossary

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