core::ops

Trait DispatchFromDyn

source 
pub trait DispatchFromDyn<T> { }
🔬This is a nightly-only experimental API. (dispatch_from_dyn)
Expand description

DispatchFromDyn is used in the implementation of object safety checks (specifically allowing arbitrary self types), to guarantee that a method’s receiver type can be dispatched on.

Note: DispatchFromDyn was briefly named CoerceSized (and had a slightly different interpretation).

Imagine we have a trait object t with type &dyn Tr, where Tr is some trait with a method m defined as fn m(&self);. When calling t.m(), the receiver t is a wide pointer, but an implementation of m will expect a narrow pointer as &self (a reference to the concrete type). The compiler must generate an implicit conversion from the trait object/wide pointer to the concrete reference/narrow pointer. Implementing DispatchFromDyn indicates that that conversion is allowed and thus that the type implementing DispatchFromDyn is safe to use as the self type in an object-safe method. (in the above example, the compiler will require DispatchFromDyn is implemented for &'a U).

DispatchFromDyn does not specify the conversion from wide pointer to narrow pointer; the conversion is hard-wired into the compiler. For the conversion to work, the following properties must hold (i.e., it is only safe to implement DispatchFromDyn for types which have these properties, these are also checked by the compiler):

  • EITHER Self and T are either both references or both raw pointers; in either case, with the same mutability.
  • OR, all of the following hold
    • Self and T must have the same type constructor, and only vary in a single type parameter formal (the coerced type, e.g., impl DispatchFromDyn<Rc<T>> for Rc<U> is ok and the single type parameter (instantiated with T or U) is the coerced type, impl DispatchFromDyn<Arc<T>> for Rc<U> is not ok).
    • The definition for Self must be a struct.
    • The definition for Self must not be #[repr(packed)] or #[repr(C)].
    • Other than one-aligned, zero-sized fields, the definition for Self must have exactly one field and that field’s type must be the coerced type. Furthermore, Self’s field type must implement DispatchFromDyn<F> where F is the type of T’s field type.

An example implementation of the trait:

impl<T: ?Sized, U: ?Sized> DispatchFromDyn<Rc<U>> for Rc<T>
where
    T: Unsize<U>,
{}

Implementors§