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adjust for current reality wrt. wide raw pointers #162

Merged
merged 10 commits into from
Sep 12, 2019
25 changes: 13 additions & 12 deletions src/what-unsafe-does.md
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -16,10 +16,9 @@ to your program. You definitely *should not* invoke Undefined Behavior.
Unlike C, Undefined Behavior is pretty limited in scope in Rust. All the core
language cares about is preventing the following things:

* Dereferencing (using the `*` operator on) dangling, or unaligned pointers, or
wide pointers with invalid metadata (see below)
* Dereferencing (using the `*` operator on) dangling or unaligned pointers (see below)
* Breaking the [pointer aliasing rules][]
* Unwinding into another language
* Calling a function with the wrong call ABI or unwinding from a function with the wrong unwind ABI.
* Causing a [data race][race]
* Executing code compiled with [target features][] that the current thread of execution does
not support
Expand All @@ -30,15 +29,15 @@ language cares about is preventing the following things:
* a null `fn` pointer
* a `char` outside the ranges [0x0, 0xD7FF] and [0xE000, 0x10FFFF]
* a `!` (all values are invalid for this type)
* a reference that is dangling, unaligned, points to an invalid value, or
that has invalid metadata (if wide)
* slice metadata is invalid if the slice has a total size larger than
`isize::MAX` bytes in memory
* `dyn Trait` metadata is invalid if it is not a pointer to a vtable for
`Trait` that matches the actual dynamic trait the reference points to
* a `str` that isn't valid UTF-8
* an integer (`i*`/`u*`), floating point value (`f*`), or raw pointer read from
[uninitialized memory][]
* a reference/`Box` that is dangling, unaligned, or points to an invalid value.
* a wide reference, `Box`, or raw pointer that has invalid metadata:
* `dyn Trait` metadata is invalid if it is not a pointer to a vtable for
`Trait` that matches the actual dynamic trait the pointer or reference points to
* slice metadata is invalid if the length is not a valid `usize`
(i.e., it must not be read from uninitialized memory)
* a `str` that isn't valid UTF-8
* a type with custom invalid values that is one of those values, such as a
`NonNull` that is null. (Requesting custom invalid values is an unstable
feature, but some stable libstd types, like `NonNull`, make use of it.)
Expand All @@ -51,8 +50,10 @@ points to are part of the same allocation (so in particular they all have to be
part of *some* allocation). The span of bytes it points to is determined by the
pointer value and the size of the pointee type. As a consequence, if the span is
empty, "dangling" is the same as "non-null". Note that slices point to their
entire range, so it's very important that the length metadata is never too
large. If for some reason this is too cumbersome, consider using raw pointers.
entire range, so it's important that the length metadata is never too large
(in particular, allocations and therefore slices cannot be bigger than
`isize::MAX` bytes). If for some reason this is too cumbersome, consider using
raw pointers.

That's it. That's all the causes of Undefined Behavior baked into Rust. Of
course, unsafe functions and traits are free to declare arbitrary other
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