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<ol class="chapter"><li class="affix"><a href="README.html">Introduction</a></li><li><a href="getting-started.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">1.</strong> Getting Started</a></li><li><a href="guessing-game.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">2.</strong> Tutorial: Guessing Game</a></li><li><a href="syntax-and-semantics.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">3.</strong> Syntax and Semantics</a></li><li><ol class="section"><li><a href="variable-bindings.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">3.1.</strong> Variable Bindings</a></li><li><a href="functions.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">3.2.</strong> Functions</a></li><li><a href="primitive-types.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">3.3.</strong> Primitive Types</a></li><li><a href="comments.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">3.4.</strong> Comments</a></li><li><a href="if.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">3.5.</strong> if</a></li><li><a href="loops.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">3.6.</strong> Loops</a></li><li><a href="vectors.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">3.7.</strong> Vectors</a></li><li><a href="ownership.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">3.8.</strong> Ownership</a></li><li><a href="references-and-borrowing.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">3.9.</strong> References and Borrowing</a></li><li><a href="lifetimes.html" class="active"><strong aria-hidden="true">3.10.</strong> Lifetimes</a></li><li><a href="mutability.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">3.11.</strong> Mutability</a></li><li><a href="structs.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">3.12.</strong> Structs</a></li><li><a href="enums.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">3.13.</strong> Enums</a></li><li><a href="match.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">3.14.</strong> Match</a></li><li><a href="patterns.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">3.15.</strong> Patterns</a></li><li><a href="method-syntax.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">3.16.</strong> Method Syntax</a></li><li><a href="strings.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">3.17.</strong> Strings</a></li><li><a href="generics.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">3.18.</strong> Generics</a></li><li><a href="traits.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">3.19.</strong> Traits</a></li><li><a href="drop.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">3.20.</strong> Drop</a></li><li><a href="if-let.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">3.21.</strong> if let</a></li><li><a href="trait-objects.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">3.22.</strong> Trait Objects</a></li><li><a href="closures.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">3.23.</strong> Closures</a></li><li><a href="ufcs.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">3.24.</strong> Universal Function Call Syntax</a></li><li><a href="crates-and-modules.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">3.25.</strong> Crates and Modules</a></li><li><a href="const-and-static.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">3.26.</strong> const and static</a></li><li><a href="attributes.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">3.27.</strong> Attributes</a></li><li><a href="type-aliases.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">3.28.</strong> type aliases</a></li><li><a href="casting-between-types.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">3.29.</strong> Casting between types</a></li><li><a href="associated-types.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">3.30.</strong> Associated Types</a></li><li><a href="unsized-types.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">3.31.</strong> Unsized Types</a></li><li><a href="operators-and-overloading.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">3.32.</strong> Operators and Overloading</a></li><li><a href="deref-coercions.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">3.33.</strong> Deref coercions</a></li><li><a href="macros.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">3.34.</strong> Macros</a></li><li><a href="raw-pointers.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">3.35.</strong> Raw Pointers</a></li><li><a href="unsafe.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">3.36.</strong> unsafe</a></li></ol></li><li><a href="effective-rust.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">4.</strong> Effective Rust</a></li><li><ol class="section"><li><a href="the-stack-and-the-heap.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">4.1.</strong> The Stack and the Heap</a></li><li><a href="testing.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">4.2.</strong> Testing</a></li><li><a href="conditional-compilation.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">4.3.</strong> Conditional Compilation</a></li><li><a href="documentation.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">4.4.</strong> Documentation</a></li><li><a href="iterators.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">4.5.</strong> Iterators</a></li><li><a href="concurrency.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">4.6.</strong> Concurrency</a></li><li><a href="error-handling.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">4.7.</strong> Error Handling</a></li><li><a href="choosing-your-guarantees.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">4.8.</strong> Choosing your Guarantees</a></li><li><a href="ffi.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">4.9.</strong> FFI</a></li><li><a href="borrow-and-asref.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">4.10.</strong> Borrow and AsRef</a></li><li><a href="release-channels.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">4.11.</strong> Release Channels</a></li><li><a href="using-rust-without-the-standard-library.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">4.12.</strong> Using Rust without the standard library</a></li><li><a href="procedural-macros.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">4.13.</strong> Procedural Macros (and custom derive)</a></li></ol></li><li><a href="glossary.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">5.</strong> Glossary</a></li><li><a href="syntax-index.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">6.</strong> Syntax Index</a></li><li><a href="bibliography.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">7.</strong> Bibliography</a></li></ol>
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<a class="header" href="lifetimes.html#lifetimes" id="lifetimes"><h1>Lifetimes</h1></a>
<p>This is the last of three sections presenting Rust’s ownership system. This is one of
Rust’s most distinct and compelling features, with which Rust developers should
become quite acquainted. Ownership is how Rust achieves its largest goal,
memory safety. There are a few distinct concepts, each with its own chapter:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="ownership.html">ownership</a>, the key concept</li>
<li><a href="references-and-borrowing.html">borrowing</a>, and their associated feature ‘references’</li>
<li>lifetimes, which you’re reading now</li>
</ul>
<p>These three chapters are related, and in order. You’ll need all three to fully
understand the ownership system.</p>
<a class="header" href="lifetimes.html#meta" id="meta"><h1>Meta</h1></a>
<p>Before we get to the details, two important notes about the ownership system.</p>
<p>Rust has a focus on safety and speed. It accomplishes these goals through many
‘zero-cost abstractions’, which means that in Rust, abstractions cost as little
as possible in order to make them work. The ownership system is a prime example
of a zero-cost abstraction. All of the analysis we’ll talk about in this guide
is <em>done at compile time</em>. You do not pay any run-time cost for any of these
features.</p>
<p>However, this system does have a certain cost: learning curve. Many new users
to Rust experience something we like to call ‘fighting with the borrow
checker’, where the Rust compiler refuses to compile a program that the author
thinks is valid. This often happens because the programmer’s mental model of
how ownership should work doesn’t match the actual rules that Rust implements.
You probably will experience similar things at first. There is good news,
however: more experienced Rust developers report that once they work with the
rules of the ownership system for a period of time, they fight the borrow
checker less and less.</p>
<p>With that in mind, let’s learn about lifetimes.</p>
<a class="header" href="lifetimes.html#lifetimes-1" id="lifetimes-1"><h1>Lifetimes</h1></a>
<p>Lending out a reference to a resource that someone else owns can be
complicated. For example, imagine this set of operations:</p>
<ol>
<li>I acquire a handle to some kind of resource.</li>
<li>I lend you a reference to the resource.</li>
<li>I decide I’m done with the resource, and deallocate it, while you still have
your reference.</li>
<li>You decide to use the resource.</li>
</ol>
<p>Uh oh! Your reference is pointing to an invalid resource. This is called a
dangling pointer or ‘use after free’, when the resource is memory. A small
example of such a situation would be:</p>
<pre><code class="language-rust ignore">let r; // Introduce reference: `r`.
{
let i = 1; // Introduce scoped value: `i`.
r = &i; // Store reference of `i` in `r`.
} // `i` goes out of scope and is dropped.
println!("{}", r); // `r` still refers to `i`.
</code></pre>
<p>To fix this, we have to make sure that step four never happens after step
three. In the small example above the Rust compiler is able to report the issue
as it can see the lifetimes of the various values in the function.</p>
<p>When we have a function that takes arguments by reference the situation becomes
more complex. Consider the following example:</p>
<pre><code class="language-rust ignore">fn skip_prefix(line: &str, prefix: &str) -> &str {
// ...
# line
}
let line = "lang:en=Hello World!";
let lang = "en";
let v;
{
let p = format!("lang:{}=", lang); // -+ `p` comes into scope.
v = skip_prefix(line, p.as_str()); // |
} // -+ `p` goes out of scope.
println!("{}", v);
</code></pre>
<p>Here we have a function <code>skip_prefix</code> which takes two <code>&str</code> references
as parameters and returns a single <code>&str</code> reference. We call it
by passing in references to <code>line</code> and <code>p</code>: Two variables with different
lifetimes. Now the safety of the <code>println!</code>-line depends on whether the
reference returned by <code>skip_prefix</code> function references the still living
<code>line</code> or the already dropped <code>p</code> string.</p>
<p>Because of the above ambiguity, Rust will refuse to compile the example
code. To get it to compile we need to tell the compiler more about the
lifetimes of the references. This can be done by making the lifetimes
explicit in the function declaration:</p>
<pre><pre class="playpen"><code class="language-rust">
# #![allow(unused_variables)]
#fn main() {
fn skip_prefix<'a, 'b>(line: &'a str, prefix: &'b str) -> &'a str {
// ...
# line
}
#}</code></pre></pre>
<p>Let's examine the changes without going too deep into the syntax for now -
we'll get to that later. The first change was adding the <code><'a, 'b></code> after the
method name. This introduces two lifetime parameters: <code>'a</code> and <code>'b</code>. Next, each
reference in the function signature was associated with one of the lifetime
parameters by adding the lifetime name after the <code>&</code>. This tells the compiler
how the lifetimes between different references are related.</p>
<p>As a result the compiler is now able to deduce that the return value of
<code>skip_prefix</code> has the same lifetime as the <code>line</code> parameter, which makes the <code>v</code>
reference safe to use even after the <code>p</code> goes out of scope in the original
example.</p>
<p>In addition to the compiler being able to validate the usage of <code>skip_prefix</code>
return value, it can also ensure that the implementation follows the contract
established by the function declaration. This is useful especially when you are
implementing traits that are introduced <a href="traits.html">later in the book</a>.</p>
<p><strong>Note</strong> It's important to understand that lifetime annotations are
<em>descriptive</em>, not <em>prescriptive</em>. This means that how long a reference is valid
is determined by the code, not by the annotations. The annotations, however,
give information about lifetimes to the compiler that uses them to check the
validity of references. The compiler can do so without annotations in simple
cases, but needs the programmer's support in complex scenarios.</p>
<a class="header" href="lifetimes.html#syntax" id="syntax"><h1>Syntax</h1></a>
<p>The <code>'a</code> reads ‘the lifetime a’. Technically, every reference has some lifetime
associated with it, but the compiler lets you elide (i.e. omit, see
<a href="lifetimes.html#lifetime-elision">"Lifetime Elision"</a> below) them in common cases. Before we
get to that, though, let’s look at a short example with explicit lifetimes:</p>
<pre><code class="language-rust ignore">fn bar<'a>(...)
</code></pre>
<p>We previously talked a little about <a href="functions.html">function syntax</a>, but we didn’t
discuss the <code><></code>s after a function’s name. A function can have ‘generic
parameters’ between the <code><></code>s, of which lifetimes are one kind. We’ll discuss
other kinds of generics <a href="generics.html">later in the book</a>, but for now, let’s
focus on the lifetimes aspect.</p>
<p>We use <code><></code> to declare our lifetimes. This says that <code>bar</code> has one lifetime,
<code>'a</code>. If we had two reference parameters with different lifetimes, it would
look like this:</p>
<pre><code class="language-rust ignore">fn bar<'a, 'b>(...)
</code></pre>
<p>Then in our parameter list, we use the lifetimes we’ve named:</p>
<pre><code class="language-rust ignore">...(x: &'a i32)
</code></pre>
<p>If we wanted a <code>&mut</code> reference, we’d do this:</p>
<pre><code class="language-rust ignore">...(x: &'a mut i32)
</code></pre>
<p>If you compare <code>&mut i32</code> to <code>&'a mut i32</code>, they’re the same, it’s that
the lifetime <code>'a</code> has snuck in between the <code>&</code> and the <code>mut i32</code>. We read <code>&mut i32</code> as ‘a mutable reference to an <code>i32</code>’ and <code>&'a mut i32</code> as ‘a mutable
reference to an <code>i32</code> with the lifetime <code>'a</code>’.</p>
<a class="header" href="lifetimes.html#in-structs" id="in-structs"><h1>In <code>struct</code>s</h1></a>
<p>You’ll also need explicit lifetimes when working with <a href="structs.html"><code>struct</code></a>s that
contain references:</p>
<pre><pre class="playpen"><code class="language-rust">struct Foo<'a> {
x: &'a i32,
}
fn main() {
let y = &5; // This is the same as `let _y = 5; let y = &_y;`.
let f = Foo { x: y };
println!("{}", f.x);
}
</code></pre></pre>
<p>As you can see, <code>struct</code>s can also have lifetimes. In a similar way to functions,</p>
<pre><pre class="playpen"><code class="language-rust">
# #![allow(unused_variables)]
#fn main() {
struct Foo<'a> {
# x: &'a i32,
# }
#}</code></pre></pre>
<p>declares a lifetime, and</p>
<pre><pre class="playpen"><code class="language-rust">
# #![allow(unused_variables)]
#fn main() {
# struct Foo<'a> {
x: &'a i32,
# }
#}</code></pre></pre>
<p>uses it. So why do we need a lifetime here? We need to ensure that any reference
to a <code>Foo</code> cannot outlive the reference to an <code>i32</code> it contains.</p>
<a class="header" href="lifetimes.html#impl-blocks" id="impl-blocks"><h2><code>impl</code> blocks</h2></a>
<p>Let’s implement a method on <code>Foo</code>:</p>
<pre><pre class="playpen"><code class="language-rust">struct Foo<'a> {
x: &'a i32,
}
impl<'a> Foo<'a> {
fn x(&self) -> &'a i32 { self.x }
}
fn main() {
let y = &5; // This is the same as `let _y = 5; let y = &_y;`.
let f = Foo { x: y };
println!("x is: {}", f.x());
}
</code></pre></pre>
<p>As you can see, we need to declare a lifetime for <code>Foo</code> in the <code>impl</code> line. We repeat
<code>'a</code> twice, like on functions: <code>impl<'a></code> defines a lifetime <code>'a</code>, and <code>Foo<'a></code>
uses it.</p>
<a class="header" href="lifetimes.html#multiple-lifetimes" id="multiple-lifetimes"><h2>Multiple lifetimes</h2></a>
<p>If you have multiple references, you can use the same lifetime multiple times:</p>
<pre><pre class="playpen"><code class="language-rust">
# #![allow(unused_variables)]
#fn main() {
fn x_or_y<'a>(x: &'a str, y: &'a str) -> &'a str {
# x
# }
#}</code></pre></pre>
<p>This says that <code>x</code> and <code>y</code> both are alive for the same scope, and that the
return value is also alive for that scope. If you wanted <code>x</code> and <code>y</code> to have
different lifetimes, you can use multiple lifetime parameters:</p>
<pre><pre class="playpen"><code class="language-rust">
# #![allow(unused_variables)]
#fn main() {
fn x_or_y<'a, 'b>(x: &'a str, y: &'b str) -> &'a str {
# x
# }
#}</code></pre></pre>
<p>In this example, <code>x</code> and <code>y</code> have different valid scopes, but the return value
has the same lifetime as <code>x</code>.</p>
<a class="header" href="lifetimes.html#thinking-in-scopes" id="thinking-in-scopes"><h2>Thinking in scopes</h2></a>
<p>A way to think about lifetimes is to visualize the scope that a reference is
valid for. For example:</p>
<pre><pre class="playpen"><code class="language-rust">fn main() {
let y = &5; // -+ `y` comes into scope.
// |
// Stuff... // |
// |
} // -+ `y` goes out of scope.
</code></pre></pre>
<p>Adding in our <code>Foo</code>:</p>
<pre><pre class="playpen"><code class="language-rust">struct Foo<'a> {
x: &'a i32,
}
fn main() {
let y = &5; // -+ `y` comes into scope.
let f = Foo { x: y }; // -+ `f` comes into scope.
// |
// Stuff... // |
// |
} // -+ `f` and `y` go out of scope.
</code></pre></pre>
<p>Our <code>f</code> lives within the scope of <code>y</code>, so everything works. What if it didn’t?
This code won’t work:</p>
<pre><code class="language-rust ignore">struct Foo<'a> {
x: &'a i32,
}
fn main() {
let x; // -+ `x` comes into scope.
// |
{ // |
let y = &5; // ---+ `y` comes into scope.
let f = Foo { x: y }; // ---+ `f` comes into scope.
x = &f.x; // | | This causes an error.
} // ---+ `f` and y go out of scope.
// |
println!("{}", x); // |
} // -+ `x` goes out of scope.
</code></pre>
<p>Whew! As you can see here, the scopes of <code>f</code> and <code>y</code> are smaller than the scope
of <code>x</code>. But when we do <code>x = &f.x</code>, we make <code>x</code> a reference to something that’s
about to go out of scope.</p>
<p>Named lifetimes are a way of giving these scopes a name. Giving something a
name is the first step towards being able to talk about it.</p>
<a class="header" href="lifetimes.html#static" id="static"><h2>'static</h2></a>
<p>The lifetime named ‘static’ is a special lifetime. It signals that something
has the lifetime of the entire program. Most Rust programmers first come across
<code>'static</code> when dealing with strings:</p>
<pre><pre class="playpen"><code class="language-rust">
# #![allow(unused_variables)]
#fn main() {
let x: &'static str = "Hello, world.";
#}</code></pre></pre>
<p>String literals have the type <code>&'static str</code> because the reference is always
alive: they are baked into the data segment of the final binary. Another
example are globals:</p>
<pre><pre class="playpen"><code class="language-rust">
# #![allow(unused_variables)]
#fn main() {
static FOO: i32 = 5;
let x: &'static i32 = &FOO;
#}</code></pre></pre>
<p>This adds an <code>i32</code> to the data segment of the binary, and <code>x</code> is a reference
to it.</p>
<a class="header" href="lifetimes.html#lifetime-elision" id="lifetime-elision"><h2>Lifetime Elision</h2></a>
<p>Rust supports powerful local type inference in the bodies of functions, but it
deliberately does not perform any reasoning about types for item signatures.
However, for ergonomic reasons, a very restricted secondary inference algorithm called
“lifetime elision” does apply when judging lifetimes. Lifetime elision is concerned solely with inferring
lifetime parameters using three easily memorizable and unambiguous rules. This means lifetime elision
acts as a shorthand for writing an item signature, while not hiding
away the actual types involved as full local inference would if applied to it.</p>
<p>When talking about lifetime elision, we use the terms <em>input lifetime</em> and
<em>output lifetime</em>. An <em>input lifetime</em> is a lifetime associated with a parameter
of a function, and an <em>output lifetime</em> is a lifetime associated with the return
value of a function. For example, this function has an input lifetime:</p>
<pre><code class="language-rust ignore">fn foo<'a>(bar: &'a str)
</code></pre>
<p>This one has an output lifetime:</p>
<pre><code class="language-rust ignore">fn foo<'a>() -> &'a str
</code></pre>
<p>This one has a lifetime in both positions:</p>
<pre><code class="language-rust ignore">fn foo<'a>(bar: &'a str) -> &'a str
</code></pre>
<p>Here are the three rules:</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>Each elided lifetime in a function’s arguments becomes a distinct lifetime
parameter.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>If there is exactly one input lifetime, elided or not, that lifetime is
assigned to all elided lifetimes in the return values of that function.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>If there are multiple input lifetimes, but one of them is <code>&self</code> or <code>&mut self</code>, the lifetime of <code>self</code> is assigned to all elided output lifetimes.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>Otherwise, it is an error to elide an output lifetime.</p>
<a class="header" href="lifetimes.html#examples" id="examples"><h3>Examples</h3></a>
<p>Here are some examples of functions with elided lifetimes. We’ve paired each
example of an elided lifetime with its expanded form.</p>
<pre><code class="language-rust ignore">fn print(s: &str); // elided
fn print<'a>(s: &'a str); // expanded
fn debug(lvl: u32, s: &str); // elided
fn debug<'a>(lvl: u32, s: &'a str); // expanded
</code></pre>
<p>In the preceding example, <code>lvl</code> doesn’t need a lifetime because it’s not a
reference (<code>&</code>). Only things relating to references (such as a <code>struct</code>
which contains a reference) need lifetimes.</p>
<pre><code class="language-rust ignore">fn substr(s: &str, until: u32) -> &str; // elided
fn substr<'a>(s: &'a str, until: u32) -> &'a str; // expanded
fn get_str() -> &str; // ILLEGAL, no inputs
fn frob(s: &str, t: &str) -> &str; // ILLEGAL, two inputs
fn frob<'a, 'b>(s: &'a str, t: &'b str) -> &str; // Expanded: Output lifetime is ambiguous
fn get_mut(&mut self) -> &mut T; // elided
fn get_mut<'a>(&'a mut self) -> &'a mut T; // expanded
fn args<T: ToCStr>(&mut self, args: &[T]) -> &mut Command; // elided
fn args<'a, 'b, T: ToCStr>(&'a mut self, args: &'b [T]) -> &'a mut Command; // expanded
fn new(buf: &mut [u8]) -> BufWriter; // elided
fn new<'a>(buf: &'a mut [u8]) -> BufWriter<'a>; // expanded
</code></pre>
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