Module proc_macro::bridge::selfless_reify

source ·
🔬This is a nightly-only experimental API. (proc_macro_internals #27812)
Expand description

Abstraction for creating fn pointers from any callable that effectively has the equivalent of implementing Default, even if the compiler neither provides Default nor allows reifying closures (i.e. creating fn pointers) other than those with absolutely no captures.

More specifically, for a closure-like type to be “effectively Default”:

  • it must be a ZST (zero-sized type): no information contained within, so that Default’s return value (if it were implemented) is unambiguous
  • it must be Copy: no captured “unique ZST tokens” or any other similar types that would make duplicating values at will unsound
    • combined with the ZST requirement, this confers a kind of “telecopy” ability: similar to Copy, but without keeping the value around, and instead “reconstructing” it (a noop given it’s a ZST) when needed
  • it must be provably inhabited: no captured uninhabited types or any other types that cannot be constructed by the user of this abstraction
    • the proof is a value of the closure-like type itself, in a sense the “seed” for the “telecopy” process made possible by ZST + Copy
    • this requirement is the only reason an abstraction limited to a specific usecase is required: ZST + Copy can be checked with at worst a panic at the “attempted ::default() call” time, but that doesn’t guarantee that the value can be soundly created, and attempting to use the typical “proof ZST token” approach leads yet again to having a ZST + Copy type that is not proof of anything without a value (i.e. isomorphic to a newtype of the type it’s trying to prove the inhabitation of)

A more flexible (and safer) solution to the general problem could exist once const-generic parameters can have type parameters in their types:

ⓘ
extern "C" fn ffi_wrapper<
    A, R,
    F: Fn(A) -> R,
    const f: F, // <-- this `const`-generic is not yet allowed
>(arg: A) -> R {
    f(arg)
}
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