rust-lang / rust-lang/rfcs

Trait attribute that asserts no blanket impl will be added

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Description

We should have some sort of attribute we can put on a trait that says "this trait will NEVER have a blanket impl". The idea here is that we could put it on things like AsRef and this would change coherence to let me do something like

impl AsRef<LocalType> for StdType { ... }

AIUI this is not allowed today because if AsRef gains a blanket impl this would then cause coherence issues. But if we can assert that AsRef will never have a blanket impl then this should be safe to declare.

/cc @nikomatsakis

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Research direction

Start with the issue's proposal for a trait attribute, using AsRef, blanket implementations, and coherence as the key concepts to investigate. A complete contribution would need a settled design for the assertion and its coherence implications, but the payload names no implementation files or tests.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
rust
Domain
compilers
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
5/5
Estimated time
Over a week
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
25/100

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