Rust Lifetime Annotations

Background

Lifetime annotations express reference relationships that Rust cannot infer, ensuring borrow safety.

Problem

Write a Rust function that takes two string slices and returns the longer one, using explicit lifetime annotations.

Input

Two string slices with potentially different lifetimes.

Output

The longer string slice, with a lifetime tied to both inputs.

Sample tests

Input: "hello", "hi"

Expected: "hello"

Your solution

Learning objective

Understand lifetime annotations, the borrow checker rules for references, and lifetime elision limits.