rust-lang / rust-lang/rust

False negative for trivial_casts with pointer

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#117,187 3 comments 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub

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A-lints A-raw-pointers C-bug P-medium regression-from-stable-to-stable T-compiler
Dominant language
Rust
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Description

After #113262, this will no longer fail to compile:
https://play.rust-lang.org/?version=stable&mode=debug&edition=2021&gist=8ee721b21617d98d18c5256778b57efe

#[deny(trivial_casts)]
fn main() {
    let a = std::ptr::null::<()>();
    let _b = a as *const ();
}

The cast is trivial, but we miss it because we have to conservatively assume that raw pointer casts are not trivial. A possible fix would be to check for trivial raw pointer casts in MIR (but correctly considering lifetimes is still not quite easy there I think).

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 reproducing the Rust playground example and trace the trivial_casts lint handling for raw pointer casts. Investigate the proposed MIR check, with particular attention to lifetime correctness; done means the shown cast is diagnosed without misclassifying other raw pointer casts.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

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

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