Declarative macros: warn on unreachable macro rule
Nobody has claimed this yet.
- Dominant language
- Rust
- Stars
- 119k
- Forks
- 16.1k
- PR merge metrics
- PR metrics pending
Description
Code
#[macro_export]
macro_rules! example {
($lit:expr) => {{
{}
}};
($lit:literal) => {{
unreachable!()
}};
}
fn main() {
example!(1)
}
Current output
Builds without any warnings, and the resulting binary runs without a panic.
Desired output
A warning telling me that the second macro rule is unreachable, because expr captures the same and more than literal.
Rationale and extra context
I think it's probably impossible to solve this for the general case, but I think it's a very helpful warning for users new to declarative macros.
Other cases
No response
Rust Version
rustc 1.83.0-nightly (0ee7cb5e3 2024-09-10)
binary: rustc
commit-hash: 0ee7cb5e3633502d9a90a85c3c367eccd59a0aba
commit-date: 2024-09-10
host: x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu
release: 1.83.0-nightly
LLVM version: 19.1.0
Anything else?
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 with the macro_rules! example in the issue and investigate how declarative macro rules are analyzed for overlap and reachability. Determine whether the compiler can identify that an expr matcher subsumes a literal matcher, then validate the intended warning against the provided example.
Written by the indexing model from the issue text.
Assessment
- Tech stack
- rust
- Domain
- compilers
- Issue type
- Feature
- Difficulty
- 5/5
- Estimated time
- Over a week
- Activity status
- Stale
- Clarity
- Needs clarification
- Newbie friendliness
- 35/100