Use String or &str?

Question

Rust

I want to parse a request from a browser. Let's say I received an array of bytes and I need to structure it somehow.
The question is what is better to use, references to data found in an array or directly own the data.

Answer 1

The solution here is not entirely clear.
On the one hand, it would be much more efficient to drag links (& str), because copying them or extracting the link to the subslice is very cheap. This will allow structures to be created and discarded when parsed without regard to the overhead from owning the String.
On the other hand, by using references, you commit yourself to ensuring that the original string will live longer than your AST. It imposes decent restrictions on your code.
In any case, I would recommend using &str. However, without code, I can’t tell you how best to save the original String until the end of the request processing.