arrayfire / arrayfire/arrayfire-rust

[BUG] `af_set_backend` is declared with the wrong parameter width

Open Beginner friendly
#388 0 comments 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub
Bug
Dominant language
Rust
Stars
827
Forks
59
PR merge metrics
No merged PRs in 30d

Description

[`src/core/backend.rs:7`](https://github.com/arrayfire/arrayfire-rust/blob/master/src/core/backend.rs#L7):

```rust
extern "C" {
fn af_set_backend(bknd: u8) -> c_int;
```

The C signature (`include/af/backend.h:24`) is:

```c
AFAPI af_err af_set_backend(const af_backend bknd);
```

`af_backend` is a C enum, i.e. 4-byte `int` under both MSVC and GCC. Declaring the parameter as `u8` is an ABI type mismatch.

In practice it works, because rustc emits `zeroext` for the `u8` argument and the callee reads a clean value from the full register — I checked the IR (`declare noundef i32 @af_set_backend(i8 noundef zeroext)`). So this is as a latent correctness issue rather than an active bug, but it should still be `c_uint` to match the C ABI.

The three neighbouring declarations in the same `extern` block already use `c_uint`/`c_int` correctly.

---

Found by Claude Opus 5.

Contributor guide

No contributing guide indexed for this repository

Research direction

Start in src/core/backend.rs:7 and compare af_set_backend with the neighboring declarations in the same extern block. Check include/af/backend.h:24 to confirm the C enum type, update the Rust declaration to match the ABI, then run the repository's Rust checks or tests. Done means the declaration uses the correct parameter width and the checks pass.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
c, rust
Domain
backend
Issue type
Bug
Difficulty
1/5
Estimated time
Under an hour
Activity status
Quiet
Clarity
Clearly specified
Newbie friendliness
88/100

Get new issues in your inbox

A short digest of beginner-friendly GitHub issues.