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<title>The Drop Trait Runs Code on Cleanup - The Rust Programming Language</title>
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<ol class="chapter"><li><a href="ch01-00-introduction.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">1.</strong> Introduction</a></li><li><ol class="section"><li><a href="ch01-01-installation.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">1.1.</strong> Installation</a></li><li><a href="ch01-02-hello-world.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">1.2.</strong> Hello, World!</a></li><li><a href="ch01-03-how-rust-is-made-and-nightly-rust.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">1.3.</strong> How Rust is Made and “Nightly Rust”</a></li></ol></li><li><a href="ch02-00-guessing-game-tutorial.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">2.</strong> Guessing Game Tutorial</a></li><li><a href="ch03-00-common-programming-concepts.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">3.</strong> Common Programming Concepts</a></li><li><ol class="section"><li><a href="ch03-01-variables-and-mutability.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">3.1.</strong> Variables and Mutability</a></li><li><a href="ch03-02-data-types.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">3.2.</strong> Data Types</a></li><li><a href="ch03-03-how-functions-work.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">3.3.</strong> How Functions Work</a></li><li><a href="ch03-04-comments.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">3.4.</strong> Comments</a></li><li><a href="ch03-05-control-flow.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">3.5.</strong> Control Flow</a></li></ol></li><li><a href="ch04-00-understanding-ownership.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">4.</strong> Understanding Ownership</a></li><li><ol class="section"><li><a href="ch04-01-what-is-ownership.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">4.1.</strong> What is Ownership?</a></li><li><a href="ch04-02-references-and-borrowing.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">4.2.</strong> References & Borrowing</a></li><li><a href="ch04-03-slices.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">4.3.</strong> Slices</a></li></ol></li><li><a href="ch05-00-structs.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">5.</strong> Using Structs to Structure Related Data</a></li><li><ol class="section"><li><a href="ch05-01-defining-structs.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">5.1.</strong> Defining and Instantiating Structs</a></li><li><a href="ch05-02-example-structs.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">5.2.</strong> An Example Program Using Structs</a></li><li><a href="ch05-03-method-syntax.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">5.3.</strong> Method Syntax</a></li></ol></li><li><a href="ch06-00-enums.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">6.</strong> Enums and Pattern Matching</a></li><li><ol class="section"><li><a href="ch06-01-defining-an-enum.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">6.1.</strong> Defining an Enum</a></li><li><a href="ch06-02-match.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">6.2.</strong> The match Control Flow Operator</a></li><li><a href="ch06-03-if-let.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">6.3.</strong> Concise Control Flow with if let</a></li></ol></li><li><a href="ch07-00-modules.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">7.</strong> Modules</a></li><li><ol class="section"><li><a href="ch07-01-mod-and-the-filesystem.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">7.1.</strong> mod and the Filesystem</a></li><li><a href="ch07-02-controlling-visibility-with-pub.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">7.2.</strong> Controlling Visibility with pub</a></li><li><a href="ch07-03-importing-names-with-use.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">7.3.</strong> Referring to Names in Different Modules</a></li></ol></li><li><a href="ch08-00-common-collections.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">8.</strong> Common Collections</a></li><li><ol class="section"><li><a href="ch08-01-vectors.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">8.1.</strong> Vectors</a></li><li><a href="ch08-02-strings.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">8.2.</strong> Strings</a></li><li><a href="ch08-03-hash-maps.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">8.3.</strong> Hash Maps</a></li></ol></li><li><a href="ch09-00-error-handling.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">9.</strong> Error Handling</a></li><li><ol class="section"><li><a href="ch09-01-unrecoverable-errors-with-panic.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">9.1.</strong> Unrecoverable Errors with panic!</a></li><li><a href="ch09-02-recoverable-errors-with-result.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">9.2.</strong> Recoverable Errors with Result</a></li><li><a href="ch09-03-to-panic-or-not-to-panic.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">9.3.</strong> To panic! or Not To panic!</a></li></ol></li><li><a href="ch10-00-generics.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">10.</strong> Generic Types, Traits, and Lifetimes</a></li><li><ol class="section"><li><a href="ch10-01-syntax.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">10.1.</strong> Generic Data Types</a></li><li><a href="ch10-02-traits.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">10.2.</strong> Traits: Defining Shared Behavior</a></li><li><a href="ch10-03-lifetime-syntax.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">10.3.</strong> Validating References with Lifetimes</a></li></ol></li><li><a href="ch11-00-testing.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">11.</strong> Testing</a></li><li><ol class="section"><li><a href="ch11-01-writing-tests.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">11.1.</strong> Writing tests</a></li><li><a href="ch11-02-running-tests.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">11.2.</strong> Running tests</a></li><li><a href="ch11-03-test-organization.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">11.3.</strong> Test Organization</a></li></ol></li><li><a href="ch12-00-an-io-project.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">12.</strong> An I/O Project: Building a Command Line Program</a></li><li><ol class="section"><li><a href="ch12-01-accepting-command-line-arguments.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">12.1.</strong> Accepting Command Line Arguments</a></li><li><a href="ch12-02-reading-a-file.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">12.2.</strong> Reading a File</a></li><li><a href="ch12-03-improving-error-handling-and-modularity.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">12.3.</strong> Refactoring to Improve Modularity and Error Handling</a></li><li><a href="ch12-04-testing-the-librarys-functionality.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">12.4.</strong> Developing the Library’s Functionality with Test Driven Development</a></li><li><a href="ch12-05-working-with-environment-variables.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">12.5.</strong> Working with Environment Variables</a></li><li><a href="ch12-06-writing-to-stderr-instead-of-stdout.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">12.6.</strong> Writing Error Messages to Standard Error Instead of Standard Output</a></li></ol></li><li><a href="ch13-00-functional-features.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">13.</strong> Functional Language Features: Iterators and Closures</a></li><li><ol class="section"><li><a href="ch13-01-closures.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">13.1.</strong> Closures: Anonymous Functions that Can Capture Their Environment</a></li><li><a href="ch13-02-iterators.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">13.2.</strong> Processing a Series of Items with Iterators</a></li><li><a href="ch13-03-improving-our-io-project.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">13.3.</strong> Improving Our I/O Project</a></li><li><a href="ch13-04-performance.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">13.4.</strong> Comparing Performance: Loops vs. Iterators</a></li></ol></li><li><a href="ch14-00-more-about-cargo.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">14.</strong> More about Cargo and Crates.io</a></li><li><ol class="section"><li><a href="ch14-01-release-profiles.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">14.1.</strong> Customizing Builds with Release Profiles</a></li><li><a href="ch14-02-publishing-to-crates-io.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">14.2.</strong> Publishing a Crate to Crates.io</a></li><li><a href="ch14-03-cargo-workspaces.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">14.3.</strong> Cargo Workspaces</a></li><li><a href="ch14-04-installing-binaries.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">14.4.</strong> Installing Binaries from Crates.io with cargo install</a></li><li><a href="ch14-05-extending-cargo.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">14.5.</strong> Extending Cargo with Custom Commands</a></li></ol></li><li><a href="ch15-00-smart-pointers.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">15.</strong> Smart Pointers</a></li><li><ol class="section"><li><a href="ch15-01-box.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">15.1.</strong> Box<T> Points to Data on the Heap and Has a Known Size</a></li><li><a href="ch15-02-deref.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">15.2.</strong> The Deref Trait Allows Access to the Data Through a Reference</a></li><li><a href="ch15-03-drop.html" class="active"><strong aria-hidden="true">15.3.</strong> The Drop Trait Runs Code on Cleanup</a></li><li><a href="ch15-04-rc.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">15.4.</strong> Rc<T>, the Reference Counted Smart Pointer</a></li><li><a href="ch15-05-interior-mutability.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">15.5.</strong> RefCell<T> and the Interior Mutability Pattern</a></li><li><a href="ch15-06-reference-cycles.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">15.6.</strong> Creating Reference Cycles and Leaking Memory is Safe</a></li></ol></li><li><a href="ch16-00-concurrency.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">16.</strong> Fearless Concurrency</a></li><li><ol class="section"><li><a href="ch16-01-threads.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">16.1.</strong> Threads</a></li><li><a href="ch16-02-message-passing.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">16.2.</strong> Message Passing</a></li><li><a href="ch16-03-shared-state.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">16.3.</strong> Shared State</a></li><li><a href="ch16-04-extensible-concurrency-sync-and-send.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">16.4.</strong> Extensible Concurrency: Sync and Send</a></li></ol></li><li><a href="ch17-00-oop.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">17.</strong> Is Rust an Object-Oriented Programming Language?</a></li><li><ol class="section"><li><a href="ch17-01-what-is-oo.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">17.1.</strong> What Does Object-Oriented Mean?</a></li><li><a href="ch17-02-trait-objects.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">17.2.</strong> Trait Objects for Using Values of Different Types</a></li><li><a href="ch17-03-oo-design-patterns.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">17.3.</strong> Object-Oriented Design Pattern Implementations</a></li></ol></li><li><a href="ch18-00-patterns.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">18.</strong> Patterns Match the Structure of Values</a></li><li><ol class="section"><li><a href="ch18-01-all-the-places-for-patterns.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">18.1.</strong> All the Places Patterns May be Used</a></li><li><a href="ch18-02-refutability.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">18.2.</strong> Refutability: Whether a Pattern Might Fail to Match</a></li><li><a href="ch18-03-pattern-syntax.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">18.3.</strong> All the Pattern Syntax</a></li></ol></li><li><a href="ch19-00-advanced-features.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">19.</strong> Advanced Features</a></li><li><ol class="section"><li><a href="ch19-01-unsafe-rust.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">19.1.</strong> Unsafe Rust</a></li><li><a href="ch19-02-advanced-lifetimes.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">19.2.</strong> Advanced Lifetimes</a></li><li><a href="ch19-03-advanced-traits.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">19.3.</strong> Advanced Traits</a></li><li><a href="ch19-04-advanced-types.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">19.4.</strong> Advanced Types</a></li><li><a href="ch19-05-advanced-functions-and-closures.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">19.5.</strong> Advanced Functions & Closures</a></li></ol></li><li><a href="ch20-00-final-project-a-web-server.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">20.</strong> Final Project: Building a Multithreaded Web Server</a></li><li><ol class="section"><li><a href="ch20-01-single-threaded.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">20.1.</strong> A Single Threaded Web Server</a></li><li><a href="ch20-02-slow-requests.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">20.2.</strong> How Slow Requests Affect Throughput</a></li><li><a href="ch20-03-designing-the-interface.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">20.3.</strong> Designing the Thread Pool Interface</a></li><li><a href="ch20-04-storing-threads.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">20.4.</strong> Creating the Thread Pool and Storing Threads</a></li><li><a href="ch20-05-sending-requests-via-channels.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">20.5.</strong> Sending Requests to Threads Via Channels</a></li><li><a href="ch20-06-graceful-shutdown-and-cleanup.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">20.6.</strong> Graceful Shutdown and Cleanup</a></li></ol></li><li><a href="appendix-00.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">21.</strong> Appendix</a></li><li><ol class="section"><li><a href="appendix-01-keywords.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">21.1.</strong> A - Keywords</a></li><li><a href="appendix-02-operators.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">21.2.</strong> B - Operators and Symbols</a></li><li><a href="appendix-03-derivable-traits.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">21.3.</strong> C - Derivable Traits</a></li><li><a href="appendix-04-macros.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">21.4.</strong> D - Macros</a></li><li><a href="appendix-05-translation.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">21.5.</strong> E - Translations</a></li><li><a href="appendix-06-newest-features.html"><strong aria-hidden="true">21.6.</strong> F - Newest Features</a></li></ol></li></ol>
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<h1 class="menu-title">The Rust Programming Language</h1>
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<a class="header" href="ch15-03-drop.html#the-drop-trait-runs-code-on-cleanup" id="the-drop-trait-runs-code-on-cleanup"><h2>The <code>Drop</code> Trait Runs Code on Cleanup</h2></a>
<p>The second trait important to the smart pointer pattern is <code>Drop</code>, which lets
us customize what happens when a value is about to go out of scope. We can
provide an implementation for the <code>Drop</code> trait on any type, and the code we
specify can be used to release resources like files or network connections.
We’re introducing <code>Drop</code> in the context of smart pointers because the
functionality of the <code>Drop</code> trait is almost always used when implementing a
smart pointer. For example, <code>Box<T></code> customizes <code>Drop</code> to deallocate the space
on the heap that the box points to.</p>
<p>In some languages, the programmer must call code to free memory or resources
every time they finish using an instance of a smart pointer. If they forget,
the system might become overloaded and crash. In Rust, we can specify that a
particular bit of code should be run whenever a value goes out of scope, and
the compiler will insert this code automatically. As a result, we don’t need to
be careful about placing cleanup code everywhere in a program that an instance
of a particular type is finished with, but we still won’t leak resources!</p>
<p>We specify the code to run when a value goes out of scope by implementing the
<code>Drop</code> trait. The <code>Drop</code> trait requires us to implement one method named <code>drop</code>
that takes a mutable reference to <code>self</code>. To see when Rust calls <code>drop</code>, let’s
implement <code>drop</code> with <code>println!</code> statements for now.</p>
<p>Listing 15-14 shows a <code>CustomSmartPointer</code> struct whose only custom
functionality is that it will print <code>Dropping CustomSmartPointer!</code> when the
instance goes out of scope. This example demonstrates when Rust runs the <code>drop</code>
function:</p>
<p><span class="filename">Filename: src/main.rs</span></p>
<pre><pre class="playpen"><code class="language-rust">struct CustomSmartPointer {
data: String,
}
impl Drop for CustomSmartPointer {
fn drop(&mut self) {
println!("Dropping CustomSmartPointer with data `{}`!", self.data);
}
}
fn main() {
let c = CustomSmartPointer { data: String::from("my stuff") };
let d = CustomSmartPointer { data: String::from("other stuff") };
println!("CustomSmartPointers created.");
}
</code></pre></pre>
<p><span class="caption">Listing 15-14: A <code>CustomSmartPointer</code> struct that
implements the <code>Drop</code> trait where we would put our cleanup code</span></p>
<p>The <code>Drop</code> trait is included in the prelude, so we don’t need to import it. We
implement the <code>Drop</code> trait on <code>CustomSmartPointer</code> and provide an
implementation for the <code>drop</code> method that calls <code>println!</code>. The body of the
<code>drop</code> function is where you would place any logic that you wanted to run when
an instance of your type goes out of scope. We’re printing some text here to
demonstrate when Rust will call <code>drop</code>.</p>
<p>In <code>main</code>, we create two instances of <code>CustomSmartPointer</code> and then print
<code>CustomSmartPointers created.</code>. At the end of <code>main</code>, our instance of
<code>CustomSmartPointer</code> will go out of scope, and Rust will call the code we put
in the <code>drop</code> method, printing our final message. Note that we didn’t need to
call the <code>drop</code> method explicitly.</p>
<p>When we run this program, we’ll see the following output:</p>
<pre><code class="language-text">CustomSmartPointers created.
Dropping CustomSmartPointer with data `other stuff`!
Dropping CustomSmartPointer with data `my stuff`!
</code></pre>
<p>Rust automatically called <code>drop</code> for us when our instance went out of scope,
calling the code we specified. Variables are dropped in the reverse order of
the order in which they were created, so <code>d</code> was dropped before <code>c</code>. This
example just gives you a visual guide to how the <code>drop</code> method works, but
usually you would specify the cleanup code that your type needs to run rather
than a print message.</p>
<a class="header" href="ch15-03-drop.html#dropping-a-value-early-with-stdmemdrop" id="dropping-a-value-early-with-stdmemdrop"><h3>Dropping a Value Early with <code>std::mem::drop</code></h3></a>
<p>Unfortunately, it’s not straightforward to disable the automatic <code>drop</code>
functionality. Disabling <code>drop</code> isn’t usually necessary; the whole point of the
<code>Drop</code> trait is that it’s taken care of automatically. Occasionally, you might
want to clean up a value early. One example is when using smart pointers that
manage locks: you might want to force the <code>drop</code> method that releases the lock
to run so other code in the same scope can acquire the lock. Rust doesn’t let
us call the <code>Drop</code> trait’s <code>drop</code> method manually; instead we have to call the
<code>std::mem::drop</code> function provided by the standard library if we want to force
a value to be dropped before the end of its scope.</p>
<p>Let’s see what happens when we try to call the <code>Drop</code> trait’s <code>drop</code> method
manually by modifying the <code>main</code> function in Listing 15-14, as shown in Listing
15-15:</p>
<p><span class="filename">Filename: src/main.rs</span></p>
<pre><code class="language-rust ignore">fn main() {
let c = CustomSmartPointer { data: String::from("some data") };
println!("CustomSmartPointer created.");
c.drop();
println!("CustomSmartPointer dropped before the end of main.");
}
</code></pre>
<p><span class="caption">Listing 15-15: Attempting to call the <code>drop</code> method from
the <code>Drop</code> trait manually to clean up early</span></p>
<p>When we try to compile this code, we’ll get this error:</p>
<pre><code class="language-text">error[E0040]: explicit use of destructor method
--> src/main.rs:14:7
|
14 | c.drop();
| ^^^^ explicit destructor calls not allowed
</code></pre>
<p>This error message states that we’re not allowed to explicitly call <code>drop</code>. The
error message uses the term <em>destructor</em>, which is the general programming term
for a function that cleans up an instance. A <em>destructor</em> is analogous to a
<em>constructor</em> that creates an instance. The <code>drop</code> function in Rust is one
particular destructor.</p>
<p>Rust doesn’t let us call <code>drop</code> explicitly because Rust would still
automatically call <code>drop</code> on the value at the end of <code>main</code>. This would be a
<em>double free</em> error because Rust would be trying to clean up the same value
twice.</p>
<p>We can’t disable the automatic insertion of <code>drop</code> when a value goes out of
scope, and we can’t call the <code>drop</code> method explicitly. So, if we need to force
a value to be cleaned up early, we can use the <code>std::mem::drop</code> function.</p>
<p>The <code>std::mem::drop</code> function is different than the <code>drop</code> method in the <code>Drop</code>
trait. We call it by passing the value we want to force to be dropped early as
an argument. The function is in the prelude, so we can modify <code>main</code> in Listing
15-14 to call the <code>drop</code> function, as shown in Listing 15-16:</p>
<p><span class="filename">Filename: src/main.rs</span></p>
<pre><pre class="playpen"><code class="language-rust"># struct CustomSmartPointer {
# data: String,
# }
#
# impl Drop for CustomSmartPointer {
# fn drop(&mut self) {
# println!("Dropping CustomSmartPointer!");
# }
# }
#
fn main() {
let c = CustomSmartPointer { data: String::from("some data") };
println!("CustomSmartPointer created.");
drop(c);
println!("CustomSmartPointer dropped before the end of main.");
}
</code></pre></pre>
<p><span class="caption">Listing 15-16: Calling <code>std::mem::drop</code> to explicitly
drop a value before it goes out of scope</span></p>
<p>Running this code will print the following:</p>
<pre><code class="language-text">CustomSmartPointer created.
Dropping CustomSmartPointer with data `some data`!
CustomSmartPointer dropped before the end of main.
</code></pre>
<p>The text <code>Dropping CustomSmartPointer with data `some data`!</code> is printed
between the <code>CustomSmartPointer created.</code> and <code>CustomSmartPointer dropped before the end of main.</code> text, showing that the <code>drop</code> method code is called to
drop <code>c</code> at that point.</p>
<p>We can use code specified in a <code>Drop</code> trait implementation in many ways to make
cleanup convenient and safe: for instance, we could use it to create our own
memory allocator! With the <code>Drop</code> trait and Rust’s ownership system, we don’t
have to remember to clean up because Rust does it automatically.</p>
<p>We also don’t have to worry about accidentally cleaning up values still in use
because that would cause a compiler error: the ownership system that makes sure
references are always valid also ensures that <code>drop</code> gets called only once when
the value is no longer being used.</p>
<p>Now that we’ve examined <code>Box<T></code> and some of the characteristics of smart
pointers, let’s look at a few other smart pointers defined in the standard
library.</p>
</main>
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