rust-lang / rust-lang/rust-clippy

lint structs/enums that need more space than strictly required due to padding

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A-lint C-an-interesting-project
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Rust
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Description

In other languages (e.g. Go, C) static analysis tools can tell if the implicit padding is taking up more space than strictly needed.

A complication is that unless using #[repr(C)], the actual object layout is not publicly defined yet. May be a nice research topic to find out the various alignment settings per system.

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Research direction

No implementation files or tests are named. Start by researching Rust struct and enum layout, alignment, padding, and the distinction between #[repr(C)] and default representations; determine whether a useful lint can be sound across systems. Done means a defined scope and implementation plan for detecting excessive padding.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
rust
Domain
tooling
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
5/5
Estimated time
Over a week
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Needs clarification
Newbie friendliness
25/100

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