How to lookup from and insert into a HashMap efficiently?

Question

I'd like to do the following:

• Lookup a Vec for a certain key, and store it for later use.
• If it doesn't exist, create an empty Vec for the key, but still keep it in the variable.

How to do this efficiently? Naturally I thought I could use match:

use std::collections::HashMap;

// This code doesn't compile.
let mut map = HashMap::new();
let key = "foo";
let values: &Vec<isize> = match map.get(key) {
    Some(v) => v,
    None => {
        let default: Vec<isize> = Vec::new();
        map.insert(key, default);
        &default
    }
};

When I tried it, it gave me errors like:

error[E0502]: cannot borrow `map` as mutable because it is also borrowed as immutable
  --> src/main.rs:11:13
   |
7  |     let values: &Vec<isize> = match map.get(key) {
   |                                     --- immutable borrow occurs here
...
11 |             map.insert(key, default);
   |             ^^^ mutable borrow occurs here
...
15 | }
   | - immutable borrow ends here

I ended up with doing something like this, but I don't like the fact that it performs the lookup twice (map.contains_key and map.get):

// This code does compile.
let mut map = HashMap::new();
let key = "foo";
if !map.contains_key(key) {
    let default: Vec<isize> = Vec::new();
    map.insert(key, default);
}
let values: &Vec<isize> = match map.get(key) {
    Some(v) => v,
    None => {
        panic!("impossiburu!");
    }
};

Is there a safe way to do this with just one match?

Answer 1

The entry API is designed for this. In manual form, it might look like

use std::collections::hash_map::Entry;

let values: &Vec<isize> = match map.entry(key) {
    Entry::Occupied(o) => o.into_mut(),
    Entry::Vacant(v) => v.insert(default)
};

Or one can use the briefer form:

map.entry(key).or_insert_with(|| default)

If default is OK/cheap to compute even when it isn't inserted, it can also just be:

map.entry(key).or_insert(default)