rust-lang / rust-lang/rfcs

Improve unsafe ergonomics

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Description

Right now, it can be a bit unwieldy to write unsafe code -- whether skipping bounds checks or working with raw pointers. To some degree this can and will be mitigated through API design, but new language features may help as well. For example, we could consider offering unsafe indexing notation, or allow indexing onto raw pointers, etc.

There are at least two closed RFCs on this topic presenting some good ideas that we were not ready to commit to for 1.0:

Raw reform
Unsafe indexing

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First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start by reading the linked closed RFCs, Raw reform and Unsafe indexing, to understand the previously considered approaches and why they were not accepted for 1.0. Compare those ideas with the current unsafe ergonomics concerns and determine whether a concrete language-design proposal can be scoped. Done means an agreed direction documented in a new RFC or issue decision.

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
Needs clarification
Newbie friendliness
20/100

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