`if` and `else` have incompatible types in a `let` statement, where `else` block's evaluation will never be assigned

[shanebishop]

I apologize if this was already reported in a separate issue, or if this is a known issue - I wasn't sure how to best search for previous issues like this.

I also realize this might not be a "bug" per se, but the other issue templates didn't seem to quite fit either.

I tried this code:

enum Cause { Cause1, Cause2 }
struct MyErr { x: Cause }

fn main() {
    _ = f();
}

fn f() -> Result<i32, MyErr> {
    let res = could_fail();
    let x = if let Ok(x) = res {
        x
    } else if let Err(e) = res {
        cleanup();
        return Err(e);
    };
    Ok(x)
}

fn could_fail() -> Result<i32, MyErr> {
    // ... code that could fail and return an Err ...
    Ok(0)
}

fn cleanup() {
    // ... cleanup code ...
}

Playground: https://play.rust-lang.org/?version=stable&mode=debug&edition=2021&gist=60acf4e59e3c6403104e01aa409aa395

I expected the code to compile successfully, since the else if branch unconditionally returns. Because the else if branch always returns, x will always be an i32.

Instead, I get this compiler error:

error[E0308]: `if` and `else` have incompatible types
  --> src/main.rs:12:12
   |
10 |        let x = if let Ok(x) = res {
   |  ______________-
11 | |          x
   | |          - expected because of this
12 | |      } else if let Err(e) = res {
   | | ____________^
13 | ||         cleanup();
14 | ||         return Err(e);
15 | ||     };
   | ||     ^
   | ||_____|
   |  |_____`if` and `else` have incompatible types
   |        expected `i32`, found `()`

Meta

rustc --version --verbose:

rustc 1.82.0 (f6e511eec 2024-10-15)
binary: rustc
commit-hash: f6e511eec7342f59a25f7c0534f1dbea00d01b14
commit-date: 2024-10-15
host: x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu
release: 1.82.0
LLVM version: 19.1.1

[fmease]

Unfortunately the diagnostic doesn't make this clear (we should fix that) but the culprit isn't the type of the else if branch, it's the type of the implicit else branch: There's an invisible else {} / else { () } at the end of the if-expression. As a result of that the type checker tries to unify three types:

1. i32,
2. /*unconstrained*/
3. ()

which leads to an error because i32 and () aren't compatible.

[fmease]

You might wonder why there's an implicit else {} / else { () } at all if the two branches seemingly cover the whole input space (Ok(_) and Err(_) for Result<_, _>). Well, in this case the checks are two separate pattern matches from the perspective of the exhaustiveness checker and therefore the match on Err(_) doesn't count towards the exhaustiveness of the first match that contains the Ok(_)! Rust doesn't have flow-sensitive typing.

Consider turning the two 'matches' into a single one for the code to pass compilation:

let x = match res {
    Ok(x) => x,
    Err(e) =>{
        cleanup();
        return Err(e);
    }
};

You can even write it pretty concisely as:

let x = res.inspect_err(|_| cleanup())?;

[fmease]

For the sake of completeness, I will mention that you could theoretically adjust your if let … else if let the following way to make your code compile but that's ill-advised:

// Please DON'T! Harness the power of exhaustiveness checking instead!
let x = if let Ok(x) = res {
    x              // <-- i32
} else if let Err(e) = res {
    cleanup();
    return Err(e); // <-- /*unconstrained*/
} else {
    // We "suppress" the implicit `else {}` / `else { () }` branch by providing an explicit branch
    unreachable!() // <-- /*unconstrained*/
};