Crate owning_ref[−][src]

Expand description

An owning reference.

This crate provides the owning reference type OwningRef that enables it to bundle a reference together with the owner of the data it points to. This allows moving and dropping of a OwningRef without needing to recreate the reference.

It works by requiring owner types to dereference to stable memory locations and preventing mutable access, which in practice requires an heap allocation as provided by Box<T>, Rc<T>, etc.

Also provided are typedefs for common owner type combinations, which allows for less verbose type signatures. For example, BoxRef<T> instead of OwningRef<Box<T>, T>.

The crate also provides the OwningHandle type, which allows bundling a dependent handle object along with the data it depends on. See the documentation around OwningHandle for more details.

Examples

Basics

extern crate owning_ref;
use owning_ref::BoxRef;

fn main() {
    // Create an array owned by a Box.
    let arr = Box::new([1, 2, 3, 4]) as Box<[i32]>;

    // Transfer into a BoxRef.
    let arr: BoxRef<[i32]> = BoxRef::new(arr);
    assert_eq!(&*arr, &[1, 2, 3, 4]);

    // We can slice the array without losing ownership or changing type.
    let arr: BoxRef<[i32]> = arr.map(|arr| &arr[1..3]);
    assert_eq!(&*arr, &[2, 3]);

    // Also works for Arc, Rc, String and Vec!
}

Caching a reference to a struct field

extern crate owning_ref;
use owning_ref::BoxRef;

fn main() {
    struct Foo {
        tag: u32,
        x: u16,
        y: u16,
        z: u16,
    }
    let foo = Foo { tag: 1, x: 100, y: 200, z: 300 };

    let or = BoxRef::new(Box::new(foo)).map(|foo| {
        match foo.tag {
            0 => &foo.x,
            1 => &foo.y,
            2 => &foo.z,
            _ => panic!(),
        }
    });

    assert_eq!(*or, 200);
}

Caching a reference to an entry in a vector

extern crate owning_ref;
use owning_ref::VecRef;

fn main() {
    let v = VecRef::new(vec![1, 2, 3, 4, 5]).map(|v| &v[3]);
    assert_eq!(*v, 4);
}

Caching a subslice of a String

extern crate owning_ref;
use owning_ref::StringRef;

fn main() {
    let s = StringRef::new("hello world".to_owned())
        .map(|s| s.split(' ').nth(1).unwrap());

    assert_eq!(&*s, "world");
}

extern crate owning_ref;
use owning_ref::RcRef;
use std::rc::Rc;

fn main() {
    let rc: RcRef<[i32]> = RcRef::new(Rc::new([1, 2, 3, 4]) as Rc<[i32]>);
    assert_eq!(&*rc, &[1, 2, 3, 4]);

    let rc_a: RcRef<[i32]> = rc.clone().map(|s| &s[0..2]);
    let rc_b = rc.clone().map(|s| &s[1..3]);
    let rc_c = rc.clone().map(|s| &s[2..4]);
    assert_eq!(&*rc_a, &[1, 2]);
    assert_eq!(&*rc_b, &[2, 3]);
    assert_eq!(&*rc_c, &[3, 4]);

    let rc_c_a = rc_c.clone().map(|s| &s[1]);
    assert_eq!(&*rc_c_a, &4);
}

extern crate owning_ref;
use owning_ref::ArcRef;
use std::sync::Arc;

fn main() {
    use std::thread;

    fn par_sum(rc: ArcRef<[i32]>) -> i32 {
        if rc.len() == 0 {
            return 0;
        } else if rc.len() == 1 {
            return rc[0];
        }
        let mid = rc.len() / 2;
        let left = rc.clone().map(|s| &s[..mid]);
        let right = rc.map(|s| &s[mid..]);

        let left = thread::spawn(move || par_sum(left));
        let right = thread::spawn(move || par_sum(right));

        left.join().unwrap() + right.join().unwrap()
    }

    let rc: Arc<[i32]> = Arc::new([1, 2, 3, 4]);
    let rc: ArcRef<[i32]> = rc.into();

    assert_eq!(par_sum(rc), 10);
}

References into RAII locks

extern crate owning_ref;
use owning_ref::RefRef;
use std::cell::{RefCell, Ref};

fn main() {
    let refcell = RefCell::new((1, 2, 3, 4));
    // Also works with Mutex and RwLock

    let refref = {
        let refref = RefRef::new(refcell.borrow()).map(|x| &x.3);
        assert_eq!(*refref, 4);

        // We move the RAII lock and the reference to one of
        // the subfields in the data it guards here:
        refref
    };

    assert_eq!(*refref, 4);

    drop(refref);

    assert_eq!(*refcell.borrow(), (1, 2, 3, 4));
}

Structs

OwningHandle

OwningHandle is a complement to OwningRef. Where OwningRef allows consumers to pass around an owned object and a dependent reference, OwningHandle contains an owned object and a dependent object.

OwningRef

An owning reference.

Traits

CloneStableAddress

Marker trait for expressing that the memory address of the value reachable via a dereference remains identical even if self is a clone.

Erased

Helper trait for an erased concrete type an owner dereferences to. This is used in form of a trait object for keeping something around to (virtually) call the destructor.

IntoErased

Helper trait for erasing the concrete type of what an owner derferences to, for example Box<T> -> Box<Erased>. This would be unneeded with higher kinded types support in the language.

StableAddress

Marker trait for expressing that the memory address of the value reachable via a dereference remains identical even if self gets moved.