Working with Any Rust Type


The only requirement of a type to work with Rhai is `Clone`.

Therefore, it is extremely easy to use Rhai with data types such as
`Rc<...>`, `Arc<...>`, `Rc<RefCell<...>>`, `Arc<Mutex<...>>` etc.


If the [`sync`] feature is used, a custom type must also be `Send + Sync`.

Rhai works seamlessly with any Rust type, as long as it implements Clone as this allows the Engine to pass by value.

A type that is not one of the standard types is termed a “custom type”.

Custom types can have the following:

Free Typing


Rhai internally supports a number of standard data types (see [this list][standard types]).

Any type outside of the list is considered _custom_.

Rhai works seamlessly with any Rust type.

A custom type is stored in Rhai as a Rust trait object (specifically, a dyn rhai::Variant), with no restrictions other than being Clone (plus Send + Sync under the sync feature).

The type literally does not have any prerequisite other than being Clone.

It does not need to implement any other trait or use any custom #[derive].

This allows Rhai to be integrated into an existing Rust code base with as little plumbing as possible, usually silently and seamlessly.

External types that are not defined within the same crate (and thus cannot implement special Rhai traits or use special #[derive]) can also be used easily with Rhai.

Support for custom types can be turned off via the no_object feature.


Custom types run _slower_ than [built-in types][standard types] due to an additional
level of indirection, but for all other purposes there is no difference.

Register a Custom Type

The custom type needs to be registered using Engine::register_type or Engine::register_type_with_name.

use rhai::{Engine, EvalAltResult};

#[derive(Debug, Clone)]
struct TestStruct {
    field: i64
}

impl TestStruct {
    fn new() -> Self {
        Self { field: 1 }
    }
}

let mut engine = Engine::new();

// Register custom type with friendly  name
engine.register_type_with_name::<TestStruct>("TestStruct")
      .register_fn("new_ts", TestStruct::new);

// Cast result back to custom type.
let result = engine.eval::<TestStruct>(
"
    new_ts()        // calls 'TestStruct::new'
")?;

println!("result: {}", result.field);   // prints 1



It is also possible to use Rust enums with Rhai.

See the pattern [Working with Enums]({{rootUrl}}/patterns/enums.md) for more details.

type_of() a Custom Type

type_of() works fine with custom types and returns the name of the type.

If Engine::register_type_with_name is used to register the custom type with a special “pretty-print” name, type_of() will return that name instead.

engine.register_type::<TestStruct1>()
      .register_fn("new_ts1", TestStruct1::new)
      .register_type_with_name::<TestStruct2>("TestStruct")
      .register_fn("new_ts2", TestStruct2::new);

let ts1_type = engine.eval::<String>("let x = new_ts1(); x.type_of()")?;
let ts2_type = engine.eval::<String>("let x = new_ts2(); x.type_of()")?;

println!("{}", ts1_type);               // prints 'path::to::TestStruct'
println!("{}", ts1_type);               // prints 'TestStruct'

== Operator

Many standard functions (e.g. filtering, searching and sorting) expect a custom type to be comparable, meaning that the == operator must be registered for the custom type.

For example, in order to use the in operator with a custom type for an array, the == operator is used to check whether two values are the same.

// Assume 'TestStruct' implements `PartialEq`
engine.register_fn("==",
    |item1: &mut TestStruct, item2: TestStruct| item1 == &item2
);

// Then this works in Rhai:
let item = new_ts();        // construct a new 'TestStruct'
item in array;              // 'in' operator uses '=='