pub auto trait UnwindSafe { }
Expand description
A marker trait which represents âpanic safeâ types in Rust.
This trait is implemented by default for many types and behaves similarly in terms of inference of implementation to the Send
and Sync
traits. The purpose of this trait is to encode what types are safe to cross a catch_unwind
boundary with no fear of unwind safety.
In Rust a function can âreturnâ early if it either panics or calls a function which transitively panics. This sort of control flow is not always anticipated, and has the possibility of causing subtle bugs through a combination of two critical components:
Typically in Rust, it is difficult to perform step (2) because catching a panic involves either spawning a thread (which in turn makes it difficult to later witness broken invariants) or using the catch_unwind
function in this module. Additionally, even if an invariant is witnessed, it typically isnât a problem in Rust because there are no uninitialized values (like in C or C++).
It is possible, however, for logical invariants to be broken in Rust, which can end up causing behavioral bugs. Another key aspect of unwind safety in Rust is that, in the absence of unsafe
code, a panic cannot lead to memory unsafety.
That was a bit of a whirlwind tour of unwind safety, but for more information about unwind safety and how it applies to Rust, see an associated RFC.
§What isUnwindSafe
?
Now that weâve got an idea of what unwind safety is in Rust, itâs also important to understand what this trait represents. As mentioned above, one way to witness broken invariants is through the catch_unwind
function in this module as it allows catching a panic and then re-using the environment of the closure.
Simply put, a type T
implements UnwindSafe
if it cannot easily allow witnessing a broken invariant through the use of catch_unwind
(catching a panic). This trait is an auto trait, so it is automatically implemented for many types, and it is also structurally composed (e.g., a struct is unwind safe if all of its components are unwind safe).
Note, however, that this is not an unsafe trait, so there is not a succinct contract that this trait is providing. Instead it is intended as more of a âspeed bumpâ to alert users of catch_unwind
that broken invariants may be witnessed and may need to be accounted for.
UnwindSafe
?
Types such as &mut T
and &RefCell<T>
are examples which are not unwind safe. The general idea is that any mutable state which can be shared across catch_unwind
is not unwind safe by default. This is because it is very easy to witness a broken invariant outside of catch_unwind
as the data is simply accessed as usual.
Types like &Mutex<T>
, however, are unwind safe because they implement poisoning by default. They still allow witnessing a broken invariant, but they already provide their own âspeed bumpsâ to do so.
UnwindSafe
be used?
It is not intended that most types or functions need to worry about this trait. It is only used as a bound on the catch_unwind
function and as mentioned above, the lack of unsafe
means it is mostly an advisory. The AssertUnwindSafe
wrapper struct can be used to force this trait to be implemented for any closed over variables passed to catch_unwind
.
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