rust-lang / rust-lang/rust-clippy

New lint suggestion: Lint against `Some(self)` in `Error::source`

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A-lint
Dominant language
Rust
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Description

What it does

This lint prevents the incorrect usage of returning Some(self) in Error::source.

Advantage
  • Avoid an infinite loop for consumers of Error::source that wants to visit all the error sources.
Drawbacks

No response

Example
impl Error for MyError {
    fn source(&self) -> Option<&(dyn Error + 'static)> {
        Some(self)
    }
}

Could be written correctly as:

impl Error for MyError {}

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

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

No implementation files or tests are named in the issue. Start by locating Clippy's existing lint implementations and tests for Rust error handling, then compare their structure with the Error::source example. Done means the incorrect Some(self) pattern is diagnosed by a lint and covered by tests without affecting valid implementations.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
rust
Domain
tooling
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
35/100

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