rust-lang / rust-lang/rust-clippy

rc_buffer lint is dangerous as it changes runtime behaviour

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C-bug good first issue L-suggestion
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Rust
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Description

clippy warns if one tries to use a type like Rc<Vec<T>>, e.g.

Arc<Vec<u8>>
^^^^^^^^^^^^ help: try: `Arc<[u8]>`

This is dangerous as creating a Rc<[T]> causes a memcpy of the whole memory area with all the elements, while creating an Rc<Vec<T>> simply copies over the 3 pointers inside the Vec without copying all the elements.

A better suggestion would probably be Rc<Box<[T]>> as that has the same runtime behaviour, but even independent of that it can be useful to have a Vec inside an Rc / Arc in combination with the make_mut() / get_mut() API.

The lint should probably be at least disabled by default.


The same also applies to Rc<String> vs Rc<str>.

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

Start by reading the rc_buffer lint implementation and its existing tests, then reproduce the Arc<Vec> and Rc cases described in the issue. Compare the suggested replacements with Vec/String mutation behavior and make the lint's behavior match the intended runtime semantics; update coverage so the relevant cases are verified.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
rust
Domain
tooling
Issue type
Bug
Difficulty
3/5
Estimated time
1-2 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
45/100

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