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Consider two traits
From<String>
From<&str>
The enum Cow<str> implements both traits
Cow has the associated function
fn from(s: String) → Cow<str>
Cow has another associated function
fn from(s: &str) → Cow<str>
Consider another trait
Into<Cow<str>>
A From implementation implies that there is a corresponding Into implementation. There is a blanket implementation of Into in the standard library. My guess is that the following code is the blanket implementation
Code Block language rust impl<T,U> Into<U> for T where U: From<T> { fn into(self) -> U { U::from(self) } }
Therefore String implements the Into<Cow<str>> trait
Code Block language rust impl<'a> Into<Cow<'a, str>> for String { fn into(self) -> Cow<'a, str> { ... } }
Also &str implements the Into<Cow<str>> trait
Code Block impl<'a> Into<Cow<'a, str>> for &'a str { fn into(self) -> Cow<'a, str> { ... } }
In the first four arms of the match expression, there are string literals upon which the method into() is called. We know the methods must have a return type of these method calls must return a Cow<'static, str>
A string literal is of type &str, a shared reference to a string slice
A string literal has a static lifetime.
Therefore the result of calling the into() method on a string literal is a Cow<'static, str>Also we
So, we see now how the first four arms of the match expression work.
In the last arm of the match expression, there is a String upon which the method into() is called. This method call must return a Cow<'static, str>
We can call the into() method on a String to get a Cow<'static, str> Cow<str> without any lifetime limitations on between the String and the Cow<str>
So, we see now how the fifth arm of the match expression works.