Expand description
Compares raw pointers for equality.
This is the same as using the == operator, but less generic:
the arguments have to be *const T raw pointers,
not anything that implements PartialEq.
This can be used to compare &T references (which coerce to *const T implicitly)
by their address rather than comparing the values they point to
(which is what the PartialEq for &T implementation does).
When comparing wide pointers, both the address and the metadata are tested for equality.
However, note that comparing trait object pointers (*const dyn Trait) is unrealiable: pointers
to values of the same underlying type can compare inequal (because vtables are duplicated in
multiple codegen units), and pointers to values of different underlying type can compare equal
(since identical vtables can be deduplicated within a codegen unit).
Examples
use std::ptr;
let five = 5;
let other_five = 5;
let five_ref = &five;
let same_five_ref = &five;
let other_five_ref = &other_five;
assert!(five_ref == same_five_ref);
assert!(ptr::eq(five_ref, same_five_ref));
assert!(five_ref == other_five_ref);
assert!(!ptr::eq(five_ref, other_five_ref));Slices are also compared by their length (fat pointers):
let a = [1, 2, 3];
assert!(std::ptr::eq(&a[..3], &a[..3]));
assert!(!std::ptr::eq(&a[..2], &a[..3]));
assert!(!std::ptr::eq(&a[0..2], &a[1..3]));