Skip to content
New issue

Have a question about this project? Sign up for a free GitHub account to open an issue and contact its maintainers and the community.

By clicking “Sign up for GitHub”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy statement. We’ll occasionally send you account related emails.

Already on GitHub? Sign in to your account

clarify UB for raw ptr deref #1000

Merged
merged 3 commits into from
Apr 7, 2021
Merged
Changes from all commits
Commits
File filter

Filter by extension

Filter by extension

Conversations
Failed to load comments.
Loading
Jump to
Jump to file
Failed to load files.
Loading
Diff view
Diff view
23 changes: 15 additions & 8 deletions src/behavior-considered-undefined.md
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -23,7 +23,9 @@ code.
</div>

* Data races.
* Dereferencing (using the `*` operator on) a dangling or unaligned raw pointer.
* Evaluating a [dereference expression] (`*expr`) on a raw pointer that is
[dangling] or unaligned, even in [place expression context]
(e.g. `addr_of!(&*expr)`).
* Breaking the [pointer aliasing rules]. `&mut T` and `&T` follow LLVM’s scoped
[noalias] model, except if the `&T` contains an [`UnsafeCell<U>`].
* Mutating immutable data. All data inside a [`const`] item is immutable. Moreover, all
Expand All @@ -45,7 +47,7 @@ code.
* A `!` (all values are invalid for this type).
* An integer (`i*`/`u*`), floating point value (`f*`), or raw pointer obtained
from [uninitialized memory][undef], or uninitialized memory in a `str`.
* A reference or `Box<T>` that is dangling, unaligned, or points to an invalid value.
* A reference or `Box<T>` that is [dangling], unaligned, or points to an invalid value.
* Invalid metadata in a wide reference, `Box<T>`, or raw pointer:
* `dyn Trait` metadata is invalid if it is not a pointer to a vtable for
`Trait` that matches the actual dynamic trait the pointer or reference points to.
Expand All @@ -62,6 +64,15 @@ a restricted set of valid values. In other words, the only cases in which
reading uninitialized memory is permitted are inside `union`s and in "padding"
(the gaps between the fields/elements of a type).

> **Note**: Undefined behavior affects the entire program. For example, calling
> a function in C that exhibits undefined behavior of C means your entire
> program contains undefined behaviour that can also affect the Rust code. And
> vice versa, undefined behavior in Rust can cause adverse affects on code
> executed by any FFI calls to other languages.

### Dangling pointers
[dangling]: #dangling-pointers

A reference/pointer is "dangling" if it is null or not all of the bytes it
points to are part of the same allocation (so in particular they all have to be
part of *some* allocation). The span of bytes it points to is determined by the
Expand All @@ -71,12 +82,6 @@ that slices and strings point to their entire range, so it is important that the
metadata is never too large. In particular, allocations and therefore slices and strings
cannot be bigger than `isize::MAX` bytes.

> **Note**: Undefined behavior affects the entire program. For example, calling
> a function in C that exhibits undefined behavior of C means your entire
> program contains undefined behaviour that can also affect the Rust code. And
> vice versa, undefined behavior in Rust can cause adverse affects on code
> executed by any FFI calls to other languages.

[`bool`]: types/boolean.md
[`const`]: items/constant-items.md
[noalias]: http://llvm.org/docs/LangRef.html#noalias
Expand All @@ -87,3 +92,5 @@ cannot be bigger than `isize::MAX` bytes.
[Rustonomicon]: ../nomicon/index.html
[`NonNull<T>`]: ../core/ptr/struct.NonNull.html
[`NonZero*`]: ../core/num/index.html
[dereference expression]: expressions/operator-expr.md#the-dereference-operator
[place expression context]: expressions.md#place-expressions-and-value-expressions