<!DOCTYPE HTML>
<html lang="en" class="sidebar-visible no-js">
<head>
<!-- Book generated using mdBook -->
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Unchecked - </title>
<meta content="text/html; charset=utf-8" http-equiv="Content-Type">
<meta name="description" content="">
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">
<meta name="theme-color" content="#ffffff" />
<base href="">
<link rel="stylesheet" href="book.css">
<link href="https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Open+Sans:300italic,400italic,600italic,700italic,800italic,400,300,600,700,800" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css">
<link href="https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Source+Code+Pro:500" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css">
<link rel="shortcut icon" href="favicon.png">
<!-- Font Awesome -->
<link rel="stylesheet" href="_FontAwesome/css/font-awesome.css">
<link rel="stylesheet" href="highlight.css">
<link rel="stylesheet" href="tomorrow-night.css">
<link rel="stylesheet" href="ayu-highlight.css">
<!-- Custom theme stylesheets -->
</head>
<body class="light">
<!-- Work around some values being stored in localStorage wrapped in quotes -->
<script type="text/javascript">
try {
var theme = localStorage.getItem('mdbook-theme');
var sidebar = localStorage.getItem('mdbook-sidebar');
if (theme.startsWith('"') && theme.endsWith('"')) {
localStorage.setItem('mdbook-theme', theme.slice(1, theme.length - 1));
}
if (sidebar.startsWith('"') && sidebar.endsWith('"')) {
localStorage.setItem('mdbook-sidebar', sidebar.slice(1, sidebar.length - 1));
}
} catch (e) { }
</script>
<!-- Set the theme before any content is loaded, prevents flash -->
<script type="text/javascript">
var theme;
try { theme = localStorage.getItem('mdbook-theme'); } catch(e) { }
if (theme === null || theme === undefined) { theme = 'light'; }
document.body.className = theme;
document.querySelector('html').className = theme + ' js';
</script>
<!-- Hide / unhide sidebar before it is displayed -->
<script type="text/javascript">
var html = document.querySelector('html');
var sidebar = 'hidden';
if (document.body.clientWidth >= 1080) {
try { sidebar = localStorage.getItem('mdbook-sidebar'); } catch(e) { }
sidebar = sidebar || 'visible';
}
html.classList.remove('sidebar-visible');
html.classList.add("sidebar-" + sidebar);
</script>
<nav id="sidebar" class="sidebar" aria-label="Table of contents">
<ol class="chapter"><li class="affix"><a href="README.html">Introduction</a></li><li><a href="meet-safe-and-unsafe.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">1.</strong> Meet Safe and Unsafe</a></li><li><ol class="section"><li><a href="safe-unsafe-meaning.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">1.1.</strong> How Safe and Unsafe Interact</a></li><li><a href="what-unsafe-does.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">1.2.</strong> What Unsafe Can Do</a></li><li><a href="working-with-unsafe.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">1.3.</strong> Working with Unsafe</a></li></ol></li><li><a href="data.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">2.</strong> Data Layout</a></li><li><ol class="section"><li><a href="repr-rust.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">2.1.</strong> repr(Rust)</a></li><li><a href="exotic-sizes.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">2.2.</strong> Exotically Sized Types</a></li><li><a href="other-reprs.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">2.3.</strong> Other reprs</a></li></ol></li><li><a href="ownership.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">3.</strong> Ownership</a></li><li><ol class="section"><li><a href="references.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">3.1.</strong> References</a></li><li><a href="aliasing.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">3.2.</strong> Aliasing</a></li><li><a href="lifetimes.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">3.3.</strong> Lifetimes</a></li><li><a href="lifetime-mismatch.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">3.4.</strong> Limits of Lifetimes</a></li><li><a href="lifetime-elision.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">3.5.</strong> Lifetime Elision</a></li><li><a href="unbounded-lifetimes.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">3.6.</strong> Unbounded Lifetimes</a></li><li><a href="hrtb.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">3.7.</strong> Higher-Rank Trait Bounds</a></li><li><a href="subtyping.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">3.8.</strong> Subtyping and Variance</a></li><li><a href="dropck.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">3.9.</strong> Drop Check</a></li><li><a href="phantom-data.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">3.10.</strong> PhantomData</a></li><li><a href="borrow-splitting.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">3.11.</strong> Splitting Borrows</a></li></ol></li><li><a href="conversions.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">4.</strong> Type Conversions</a></li><li><ol class="section"><li><a href="coercions.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">4.1.</strong> Coercions</a></li><li><a href="dot-operator.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">4.2.</strong> The Dot Operator</a></li><li><a href="casts.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">4.3.</strong> Casts</a></li><li><a href="transmutes.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">4.4.</strong> Transmutes</a></li></ol></li><li><a href="uninitialized.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">5.</strong> Uninitialized Memory</a></li><li><ol class="section"><li><a href="checked-uninit.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">5.1.</strong> Checked</a></li><li><a href="drop-flags.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">5.2.</strong> Drop Flags</a></li><li><a href="unchecked-uninit.html" class="active"><strong aria-hidden="true">5.3.</strong> Unchecked</a></li></ol></li><li><a href="obrm.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">6.</strong> Ownership Based Resource Management</a></li><li><ol class="section"><li><a href="constructors.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">6.1.</strong> Constructors</a></li><li><a href="destructors.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">6.2.</strong> Destructors</a></li><li><a href="leaking.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">6.3.</strong> Leaking</a></li></ol></li><li><a href="unwinding.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">7.</strong> Unwinding</a></li><li><ol class="section"><li><a href="exception-safety.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">7.1.</strong> Exception Safety</a></li><li><a href="poisoning.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">7.2.</strong> Poisoning</a></li></ol></li><li><a href="concurrency.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">8.</strong> Concurrency</a></li><li><ol class="section"><li><a href="races.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">8.1.</strong> Races</a></li><li><a href="send-and-sync.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">8.2.</strong> Send and Sync</a></li><li><a href="atomics.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">8.3.</strong> Atomics</a></li></ol></li><li><a href="vec.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">9.</strong> Implementing Vec</a></li><li><ol class="section"><li><a href="vec-layout.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">9.1.</strong> Layout</a></li><li><a href="vec-alloc.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">9.2.</strong> Allocating</a></li><li><a href="vec-push-pop.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">9.3.</strong> Push and Pop</a></li><li><a href="vec-dealloc.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">9.4.</strong> Deallocating</a></li><li><a href="vec-deref.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">9.5.</strong> Deref</a></li><li><a href="vec-insert-remove.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">9.6.</strong> Insert and Remove</a></li><li><a href="vec-into-iter.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">9.7.</strong> IntoIter</a></li><li><a href="vec-raw.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">9.8.</strong> RawVec</a></li><li><a href="vec-drain.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">9.9.</strong> Drain</a></li><li><a href="vec-zsts.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">9.10.</strong> Handling Zero-Sized Types</a></li><li><a href="vec-final.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">9.11.</strong> Final Code</a></li></ol></li><li><a href="arc-and-mutex.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">10.</strong> Implementing Arc and Mutex</a></li><li><a href="ffi.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">11.</strong> FFI</a></li></ol>
</nav>
<div id="page-wrapper" class="page-wrapper">
<div class="page">
<div id="menu-bar" class="menu-bar">
<div id="menu-bar-sticky-container">
<div class="left-buttons">
<button id="sidebar-toggle" class="icon-button" type="button" title="Toggle Table of Contents" aria-label="Toggle Table of Contents" aria-controls="sidebar">
<i class="fa fa-bars"></i>
</button>
<button id="theme-toggle" class="icon-button" type="button" title="Change theme" aria-label="Change theme" aria-haspopup="true" aria-expanded="false" aria-controls="theme-list">
<i class="fa fa-paint-brush"></i>
</button>
<ul id="theme-list" class="theme-popup" aria-label="Themes" role="menu">
<li role="none"><button role="menuitem" class="theme" id="light">Light <span class="default">(default)</span></button></li>
<li role="none"><button role="menuitem" class="theme" id="rust">Rust</button></li>
<li role="none"><button role="menuitem" class="theme" id="coal">Coal</button></li>
<li role="none"><button role="menuitem" class="theme" id="navy">Navy</button></li>
<li role="none"><button role="menuitem" class="theme" id="ayu">Ayu</button></li>
</ul>
<button id="search-toggle" class="icon-button" type="button" title="Search. (Shortkey: s)" aria-label="Toggle Searchbar" aria-expanded="false" aria-keyshortcuts="S" aria-controls="searchbar">
<i class="fa fa-search"></i>
</button>
</div>
<h1 class="menu-title"></h1>
<div class="right-buttons">
<a href="print.html" title="Print this book" aria-label="Print this book">
<i id="print-button" class="fa fa-print"></i>
</a>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div id="search-wrapper" class="hidden">
<form id="searchbar-outer" class="searchbar-outer">
<input type="search" name="search" id="searchbar" name="searchbar" placeholder="Search this book ..." aria-controls="searchresults-outer" aria-describedby="searchresults-header">
</form>
<div id="searchresults-outer" class="searchresults-outer hidden">
<div id="searchresults-header" class="searchresults-header"></div>
<ul id="searchresults">
</ul>
</div>
</div>
<!-- Apply ARIA attributes after the sidebar and the sidebar toggle button are added to the DOM -->
<script type="text/javascript">
document.getElementById('sidebar-toggle').setAttribute('aria-expanded', sidebar === 'visible');
document.getElementById('sidebar').setAttribute('aria-hidden', sidebar !== 'visible');
Array.from(document.querySelectorAll('#sidebar a')).forEach(function(link) {
link.setAttribute('tabIndex', sidebar === 'visible' ? 0 : -1);
});
</script>
<div id="content" class="content">
<main>
<a class="header" href="unchecked-uninit.html#unchecked-uninitialized-memory" id="unchecked-uninitialized-memory"><h1>Unchecked Uninitialized Memory</h1></a>
<p>One interesting exception to this rule is working with arrays. Safe Rust doesn't
permit you to partially initialize an array. When you initialize an array, you
can either set every value to the same thing with <code>let x = [val; N]</code>, or you can
specify each member individually with <code>let x = [val1, val2, val3]</code>.
Unfortunately this is pretty rigid, especially if you need to initialize your
array in a more incremental or dynamic way.</p>
<p>Unsafe Rust gives us a powerful tool to handle this problem:
<code>mem::uninitialized</code>. This function pretends to return a value when really
it does nothing at all. Using it, we can convince Rust that we have initialized
a variable, allowing us to do trickier things with conditional and incremental
initialization.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, this opens us up to all kinds of problems. Assignment has a
different meaning to Rust based on whether it believes that a variable is
initialized or not. If it's believed uninitialized, then Rust will semantically
just memcopy the bits over the uninitialized ones, and do nothing else. However
if Rust believes a value to be initialized, it will try to <code>Drop</code> the old value!
Since we've tricked Rust into believing that the value is initialized, we can no
longer safely use normal assignment.</p>
<p>This is also a problem if you're working with a raw system allocator, which
returns a pointer to uninitialized memory.</p>
<p>To handle this, we must use the <code>ptr</code> module. In particular, it provides
three functions that allow us to assign bytes to a location in memory without
dropping the old value: <code>write</code>, <code>copy</code>, and <code>copy_nonoverlapping</code>.</p>
<ul>
<li><code>ptr::write(ptr, val)</code> takes a <code>val</code> and moves it into the address pointed
to by <code>ptr</code>.</li>
<li><code>ptr::copy(src, dest, count)</code> copies the bits that <code>count</code> T's would occupy
from src to dest. (this is equivalent to memmove -- note that the argument
order is reversed!)</li>
<li><code>ptr::copy_nonoverlapping(src, dest, count)</code> does what <code>copy</code> does, but a
little faster on the assumption that the two ranges of memory don't overlap.
(this is equivalent to memcpy -- note that the argument order is reversed!)</li>
</ul>
<p>It should go without saying that these functions, if misused, will cause serious
havoc or just straight up Undefined Behavior. The only things that these
functions <em>themselves</em> require is that the locations you want to read and write
are allocated. However the ways writing arbitrary bits to arbitrary
locations of memory can break things are basically uncountable!</p>
<p>Putting this all together, we get the following:</p>
<pre><pre class="playpen"><code class="language-rust">
# #![allow(unused_variables)]
#fn main() {
use std::mem;
use std::ptr;
// size of the array is hard-coded but easy to change. This means we can't
// use [a, b, c] syntax to initialize the array, though!
const SIZE: usize = 10;
let mut x: [Box<u32>; SIZE];
unsafe {
// convince Rust that x is Totally Initialized
x = mem::uninitialized();
for i in 0..SIZE {
// very carefully overwrite each index without reading it
// NOTE: exception safety is not a concern; Box can't panic
ptr::write(&mut x[i], Box::new(i as u32));
}
}
println!("{:?}", x);
#}</code></pre></pre>
<p>It's worth noting that you don't need to worry about <code>ptr::write</code>-style
shenanigans with types which don't implement <code>Drop</code> or contain <code>Drop</code> types,
because Rust knows not to try to drop them. Similarly you should be able to
assign to fields of partially initialized structs directly if those fields don't
contain any <code>Drop</code> types.</p>
<p>However when working with uninitialized memory you need to be ever-vigilant for
Rust trying to drop values you make like this before they're fully initialized.
Every control path through that variable's scope must initialize the value
before it ends, if it has a destructor.
<em><a href="unwinding.html">This includes code panicking</a></em>.</p>
<p>And that's about it for working with uninitialized memory! Basically nothing
anywhere expects to be handed uninitialized memory, so if you're going to pass
it around at all, be sure to be <em>really</em> careful.</p>
</main>
<nav class="nav-wrapper" aria-label="Page navigation">
<!-- Mobile navigation buttons -->
<a rel="prev" href="drop-flags.html" class="mobile-nav-chapters previous" title="Previous chapter" aria-label="Previous chapter" aria-keyshortcuts="Left">
<i class="fa fa-angle-left"></i>
</a>
<a rel="next" href="obrm.html" class="mobile-nav-chapters next" title="Next chapter" aria-label="Next chapter" aria-keyshortcuts="Right">
<i class="fa fa-angle-right"></i>
</a>
<div style="clear: both"></div>
</nav>
</div>
</div>
<nav class="nav-wide-wrapper" aria-label="Page navigation">
<a href="drop-flags.html" class="nav-chapters previous" title="Previous chapter" aria-label="Previous chapter" aria-keyshortcuts="Left">
<i class="fa fa-angle-left"></i>
</a>
<a href="obrm.html" class="nav-chapters next" title="Next chapter" aria-label="Next chapter" aria-keyshortcuts="Right">
<i class="fa fa-angle-right"></i>
</a>
</nav>
</div>
<script src="searchindex.js" type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8"></script>
<script src="elasticlunr.min.js" type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8"></script>
<script src="mark.min.js" type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8"></script>
<script src="searcher.js" type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8"></script>
<script src="clipboard.min.js" type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8"></script>
<script src="highlight.js" type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8"></script>
<script src="book.js" type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8"></script>
<!-- Custom JS scripts -->
</body>
</html>
distrib
>
Mageia
>
6
>
armv7hl
>
media
>
core-updates
>
by-pkgid
>
4e2dbb669434a7691662cb2f0ad38972
>
files
>
10990
