<!DOCTYPE HTML> <html lang="en"> <head> <meta charset="UTF-8"> <title>Introduction - </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="https://maxcdn.bootstrapcdn.com/font-awesome/4.3.0/css/font-awesome.min.css"> <link rel="stylesheet" href="highlight.css"> <link rel="stylesheet" href="tomorrow-night.css"> <link rel="stylesheet" href="ayu-highlight.css"> <!-- Custom theme --> <!-- Fetch 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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"><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="submenu"> <li><button class="theme" id="light">Light <span class="default">(default)</span></button></li> <li><button class="theme" id="rust">Rust</button></li> <li><button class="theme" id="coal">Coal</button></li> <li><button class="theme" id="navy">Navy</button></li> <li><button class="theme" id="ayu">Ayu</button></li> </ul> </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> <!-- 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="README.html#the-rustonomicon" id="the-rustonomicon"><h1>The Rustonomicon</h1></a> <a class="header" href="README.html#the-dark-arts-of-advanced-and-unsafe-rust-programming" id="the-dark-arts-of-advanced-and-unsafe-rust-programming"><h4>The Dark Arts of Advanced and Unsafe Rust Programming</h4></a> <a class="header" href="README.html#note-this-is-a-draft-document-that-discusses-several-unstable-aspects-of-rust-and-may-contain-serious-errors-or-outdated-information" id="note-this-is-a-draft-document-that-discusses-several-unstable-aspects-of-rust-and-may-contain-serious-errors-or-outdated-information"><h1>NOTE: This is a draft document that discusses several unstable aspects of Rust, and may contain serious errors or outdated information.</h1></a> <blockquote> <p>Instead of the programs I had hoped for, there came only a shuddering blackness and ineffable loneliness; and I saw at last a fearful truth which no one had ever dared to breathe before — the unwhisperable secret of secrets — The fact that this language of stone and stridor is not a sentient perpetuation of Rust as London is of Old London and Paris of Old Paris, but that it is in fact quite unsafe, its sprawling body imperfectly embalmed and infested with queer animate things which have nothing to do with it as it was in compilation.</p> </blockquote> <p>This book digs into all the awful details that are necessary to understand in order to write correct Unsafe Rust programs. Due to the nature of this problem, it may lead to unleashing untold horrors that shatter your psyche into a billion infinitesimal fragments of despair.</p> <p>Should you wish a long and happy career of writing Rust programs, you should turn back now and forget you ever saw this book. It is not necessary. However if you intend to write unsafe code — or just want to dig into the guts of the language — this book contains lots of useful information.</p> <p>Unlike <em><a href="../book/index.html">The Rust Programming Language</a></em>, we will be assuming considerable prior knowledge. In particular, you should be comfortable with basic systems programming and Rust. If you don't feel comfortable with these topics, you should consider <a href="../book/index.html">reading The Book</a> first. That said, we won't assume you have read it, and we will take care to occasionally give a refresher on the basics where appropriate. You can skip straight to this book if you want; just know that we won't be explaining everything from the ground up.</p> <p>We're going to dig into exception-safety, pointer aliasing, memory models, compiler and hardware implementation details, and even some type-theory. Much text will be devoted to exotic corner cases that no one <em>should</em> ever have to care about, but suddenly become important because we wrote <code>unsafe</code>.</p> <p>We will also be spending a lot of time talking about the different kinds of safety and guarantees that programs could care about.</p> </main> <nav class="nav-wrapper" aria-label="Page navigation"> <!-- Mobile navigation buttons --> <a rel="next" href="meet-safe-and-unsafe.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="meet-safe-and-unsafe.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> <!-- Local fallback for Font Awesome --> <script> if (getComputedStyle(document.querySelector(".fa")).fontFamily !== "FontAwesome") { var link = document.createElement('link'); link.rel = 'stylesheet'; link.type = 'text/css'; link.href = '_FontAwesome/css/font-awesome.css'; document.head.insertBefore(link, document.head.firstChild) } </script> <script src="highlight.js"></script> <script src="book.js"></script> <!-- Custom JS script --> </body> </html>