RFC 0241: deref-conversions

lang (typesystem | coercions)

Summary

Add the following coercions:

These coercions eliminate the need for "cross-borrowing" (things like &**v) and calls to as_slice.

Motivation

Rust currently supports a conservative set of implicit coercions that are used when matching the types of arguments against those given for a function's parameters. For example, if T: Trait then &T is implicitly coerced to &Trait when used as a function argument:

trait MyTrait { ... }
struct MyStruct { ... }
impl MyTrait for MyStruct { ... }

fn use_trait_obj(t: &MyTrait) { ... }
fn use_struct(s: &MyStruct) {
    use_trait_obj(s)    // automatically coerced from &MyStruct to &MyTrait
}

In older incarnations of Rust, in which types like vectors were built in to the language, coercions included things like auto-borrowing (taking T to &T), auto-slicing (taking Vec<T> to &[T]) and "cross-borrowing" (taking Box<T> to &T). As built-in types migrated to the library, these coercions have disappeared: none of them apply today. That means that you have to write code like &**v to convert &Box<T> or Rc<RefCell<T>> to &T and v.as_slice() to convert Vec<T> to &T.

The ergonomic regression was coupled with a promise that we'd improve things in a more general way later on.

"Later on" has come! The premise of this RFC is that (1) we have learned some valuable lessons in the interim and (2) there is a quite conservative kind of coercion we can add that dramatically improves today's ergonomic state of affairs.

Detailed design

Design principles

The centrality of ownership and borrowing

As Rust has evolved, a theme has emerged: ownership and borrowing are the focal point of Rust's design, and the key enablers of much of Rust's achievements.

As such, reasoning about ownership/borrowing is a central aspect of programming in Rust.

In the old coercion model, borrowing could be done completely implicitly, so an invocation like:

foo(bar, baz, quux)

might move bar, immutably borrow baz, and mutably borrow quux. To understand the flow of ownership, then, one has to be aware of the details of all function signatures involved -- it is not possible to see ownership at a glance.

When auto-borrowing was removed, this reasoning difficulty was cited as a major motivator:

Code readability does not necessarily benefit from autoref on arguments:

let a = ~Foo;
foo(a); // reading this code looks like it moves `a`
fn foo(_: &Foo) {} // ah, nevermind, it doesn't move `a`!

let mut a = ~[ ... ];
sort(a); // not only does this not move `a`, but it mutates it!

Having to include an extra & or &mut for arguments is a slight inconvenience, but it makes it much easier to track ownership at a glance. (Note that ownership is not entirely explicit, due to self and macros; see the appendix.)

This RFC takes as a basic principle: Coercions should never implicitly borrow from owned data.

This is a key difference from the cross-borrowing RFC.

Limit implicit execution of arbitrary code

Another positive aspect of Rust's current design is that a function call like foo(bar, baz) does not invoke arbitrary code (general implicit coercions, as found in e.g. Scala). It simply executes foo.

The tradeoff here is similar to the ownership tradeoff: allowing arbitrary implicit coercions means that a programmer must understand the types of the arguments given, the types of the parameters, and all applicable coercion code in order to understand what code will be executed. While arbitrary coercions are convenient, they come at a substantial cost in local reasoning about code.

Of course, method dispatch can implicitly execute code via Deref. But Deref is a pretty specialized tool:

These characteristics combined make Deref suitable for smart pointer-like types and little else. They make Deref implementations relatively rare. And as a consequence, you generally know when you're working with a type implementing Deref.

This RFC takes as a basic principle: Coercions should narrowly limit the code they execute.

Coercions through Deref are considered narrow enough.

The proposal

The idea is to introduce a coercion corresponding to Deref/DerefMut, but only for already-borrowed values:

These coercions are applied recursively, similarly to auto-deref for method dispatch.

Here is a simple pseudocode algorithm for determining the applicability of coercions. Let HasBasicCoercion(T, U) be a procedure for determining whether T can be coerced to U using today's coercion rules (i.e. without deref). The general HasCoercion(T, U) procedure would work as follows:

HasCoercion(T, U):

  if HasBasicCoercion(T, U) then
      true
  else if T = &V and V: Deref<W> then
      HasCoercion(&W, U)
  else if T = &mut V and V: Deref<W> then
      HasCoercion(&W, U)
  else if T = &mut V and V: DerefMut<W> then
      HasCoercion(&W, U)
  else
      false

Essentially, the procedure looks for applicable "basic" coercions at increasing levels of deref from the given argument, just as method resolution searches for applicable methods at increasing levels of deref.

Unlike method resolution, however, this coercion does not automatically borrow.

Benefits of the design

Under this coercion design, we'd see the following ergonomic improvements for "cross-borrowing":

fn use_ref(t: &T) { ... }
fn use_mut(t: &mut T) { ... }

fn use_rc(t: Rc<T>) {
    use_ref(&*t);  // what you have to write today
    use_ref(&t);   // what you'd be able to write
}

fn use_mut_box(t: &mut Box<T>) {
    use_mut(&mut *t); // what you have to write today
    use_mut(t);       // what you'd be able to write

    use_ref(*t);      // what you have to write today
    use_ref(t);       // what you'd be able to write
}

fn use_nested(t: &Box<T>) {
    use_ref(&**t);  // what you have to write today
    use_ref(t);     // what you'd be able to write (note: recursive deref)
}

In addition, if Vec<T>: Deref<[T]> (as proposed here), slicing would be automatic:

fn use_slice(s: &[u8]) { ... }

fn use_vec(v: Vec<u8>) {
    use_slice(v.as_slice());    // what you have to write today
    use_slice(&v);              // what you'd be able to write
}

fn use_vec_ref(v: &Vec<u8>) {
    use_slice(v.as_slice());    // what you have to write today
    use_slice(v);               // what you'd be able to write
}

Characteristics of the design

The design satisfies both of the principles laid out in the Motivation:

There is a conceptual model implicit in the design here: & is a "borrow" operator, and richer coercions are available between borrowed types. This perspective is in opposition to viewing & primarily as adding a layer of indirection -- a view that, given compiler optimizations, is often inaccurate anyway.

Drawbacks

As with any mechanism that implicitly invokes code, deref coercions make it more complex to fully understand what a given piece of code is doing. The RFC argued inline that the design conserves local reasoning in practice.

As mentioned above, this coercion design also changes the mental model surrounding &, and in particular somewhat muddies the idea that it creates a pointer. This change could make Rust more difficult to learn (though note that it puts more attention on ownership), though it would make it more convenient to use in the long run.

Alternatives

The main alternative that addresses the same goals as this RFC is the cross-borrowing RFC, which proposes a more aggressive form of deref coercion: it would allow converting e.g. Box<T> to &T and Vec<T> to &[T] directly. The advantage is even greater convenience: in many cases, even & is not necessary. The disadvantage is the change to local reasoning about ownership:

let v = vec![0u8, 1, 2];
foo(v); // is v moved here?
bar(v); // is v still available?

Knowing whether v is moved in the call to foo requires knowing foo's signature, since the coercion would implicitly borrow from the vector.

Appendix: ownership in Rust today

In today's Rust, ownership transfer/borrowing is explicit for all function/method arguments. It is implicit only for:

Copyright 2022 Nick Cameron and the RFC authors.