rust-lang / rust-lang/rust-clippy
Detect assignment operators that do nothing (e.g. `+= 0`)
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- Dominant language
- Rust
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Description
What it does
Currently, identity_op can detect expressions that contain useless operators:
warning: this operation has no effect
--> src/lib.rs:3:15
|
3 | counter = counter + 0;
| ^^^^^^^^^^^ help: consider reducing it to: `counter`
However, nothing detects a useless assignment version of the same operation: counter += 0 produces no lint at all. Detecting this seems to me to be a straightforward extension of what identity_op is already doing — though perhaps it should be a separate lint, since identity_op is sometimes a style negative, as in #13813, and this case is much more likely to be an outright bug.
Advantage
Detects code that is unnecessary and may be a bug.
Drawbacks
As with identity_op, the author might want code that completes a regular pattern even if one case is a no-op.
Example
pub fn example() -> i32 {
let mut counter = 0;
counter += 0;
counter
}
Could be written as:
pub fn example() -> i32 {
let mut counter = 0;
counter
}
But the diagnostic should focus on the hypothesis that this is a bug, not that the code can be simplified while preserving its behavior.
Comparison with existing lints
No response
Additional Context
No response
Contributor guide
First steps
- Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
- Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
- Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
- Open a pull request that references the issue number.
Research direction
Start by locating the existing identity_op lint and its tests, then trace how assignment operators are represented and diagnosed. Add coverage for compound assignments such as counter += 0; done means the useless assignment is reported with a bug-focused diagnostic while preserving the existing behavior for ordinary identity operations.
Written by the indexing model from the issue text.
Assessment
- Tech stack
- rust
- Domain
- tooling
- Issue type
- Feature
- Difficulty
- 3/5
- Estimated time
- 1-2 days
- Activity status
- Quiet
- Clarity
- Mostly clear
- Newbie friendliness
- 62/100