recursion - Recursive function if statement mismatched types in Rust

Question

fn recursive_binary_search<T: Ord>(list: &mut [T], target: T) -> bool {
    if list.len() < 1 {
        return false;
    }
    let guess = list.len() / 2;
    if target == list[guess] {
        return true;
    } else if list[guess] > target {
        return recursive_binary_search(&mut list[0..guess], target);
    } else if list[guess] < target {
        return recursive_binary_search(&mut list[guess..list.len()], target);
    }
}

the compiler throws an error on if target == list[guess] saying

src/main.rs:33:5: 39:6 error: mismatched types [E0308]
src/main.rs:33     if target == list[guess] {
                   ^
src/main.rs:33:5: 39:6 help: run `rustc --explain E0308` to see a detailed explanation
src/main.rs:33:5: 39:6 note: expected type `bool`
src/main.rs:33:5: 39:6 note:    found type `()`
error: aborting due to previous error

I can't figure out how to rewrite this function to satisfy the type checker. I assume it is because I have the return type set to bool and there is a return function call?

Answer 1

The issue here is that Rust evaluates the if/else if/else if block as the return value because it lacks an else clause, and statements which don't evaluate to any value have the type (). Incidentally, the code you've presented does exhaustively cover all possibilities (the item at the current index of the slice is either equal to, less than, or greater than the target), but the compiler doesn't know that unless you give it an else clause at the end:

fn recursive_binary_search<T: Ord + Eq>(list: &[T], target: T) -> bool {
    if list.len() < 1 {
        return false;
    }
    let guess = list.len() / 2;
    if target == list[guess] {
        return true;
    } else if list[guess] > target {
        return recursive_binary_search(&list[0..guess], target);
    } else {
        return recursive_binary_search(&list[guess..list.len()], target);
    }
}

PS: This function doesn't require mutable references, so I'd recommend using regular references as in my code above.

EDIT: For posterity, here's the same code w/o explicit returns:

fn recursive_binary_search<T: Ord>(list: &[T], target: T) -> bool {
    if list.len() < 1 {
        return false;
    }
    let guess = list.len() / 2;
    if target == list[guess] {
        true
    } else if list[guess] > target {
        recursive_binary_search(&list[0..guess], target)
    } else {
        recursive_binary_search(&list[guess..list.len()], target)
    }
}