R6: Ownership Flashcards
What Is Ownership?
Ownership is a set of rules that govern how a Rust program manages memory. All programs have to manage the way they use a computer’s memory while running. Some languages have garbage collection that regularly looks for no-longer-used memory as the program runs; in other languages, the programmer must explicitly allocate and free the memory. Rust uses a third approach: memory is managed through a system of ownership with a set of rules that the compiler checks. If any of the rules are violated, the program won’t compile. None of the features of ownership will slow down your program while it’s running.
Ownership Rules
First, let’s take a look at the ownership rules. Keep these rules in mind as we work through the examples that illustrate them:
- Each value in Rust has an owner.
- There can only be one owner at a time.
- When the owner goes out of scope, the value will be dropped.
Variable Scope
When s comes into scope, it is valid.
It remains valid until it goes out of scope.
The String Type
- String literals are convenient bc they’re immutable
- manages data allocated on the heap and as such is able to store an amount of text that is unknown to us at compile time.
- This kind of string can be mutated:
- Example: l
let mut s = String::from("hello");
s.push_str(", world!"); // push_str() appends a literal to a String
println!("{}", s); // This will print `hello, world!`
Resource Acquisition Is Initialization (RAII)
ust takes a different path: the memory is automatically returned once the variable that owns it goes out of scope. Here’s a version of our scope example from Listing 4-1 using a String instead of a string literal:
{
let s = String::from("hello"); // s is valid from this point forward
// do stuff with s
} // this scope is now over, and s is no
// longer valid
Is this valid?
~~~
let s1 = String::from(“hello”);
let s2 = s1;
println!("{}, world!", s1); ~~~
No. To ensure memory safety, after the line let s2 = s1;, Rust considers s1 as no longer valid. Therefore, Rust doesn’t need to free anything when s1 goes out of scope. Check out what happens when you try to use s1 after s2 is created; it won’t work:
$ cargo run
Compiling ownership v0.1.0 (file:///projects/ownership)
error[E0382]: borrow of moved value: `s1`
--> src/main.rs:5:28
|
2 | let s1 = String::from("hello");
| -- move occurs because `s1` has type `String`, which does not implement the `Copy` trait
3 | let s2 = s1;
| -- value moved here
4 |
5 | println!("{}, world!", s1);
| ^^ value borrowed here after move
|
= note: this error originates in the macro `$crate::format_args_nl` which comes from the expansion of the macro `println` (in Nightly builds, run with -Z macro-backtrace for more info)
For more information about this error, try `rustc --explain E0382`.
error: could not compile `ownership` due to previous error
But because Rust also invalidates the first variable, instead of being called a shallow copy, it’s known as a move.
What is a move in rust?
But because Rust also invalidates the first variable, instead of being called a shallow copy, it’s known as a move.
Deep copy in rust
In addition, there’s a design choice that’s implied by this: Rust will never automatically create “deep” copies of your data. Therefore, any automatic copying can be assumed to be inexpensive in terms of runtime performance.
If we do want to deeply copy the heap data of the String, not just the stack data, we can use a common method called clone.
Is this valid?
let s1 = String::from(“hello”);
let s2 = s1.clone();
println!("s1 = {}, s2 = {}", s1, s2);
Yes. This works just fine and explicitly produces the behavior shown in, where the heap data does get copied.
let x = 5;
let y = x;
println!("x = {}, y = {}", x, y); Is this valid?
This code using integers works and is valid. But this code seems to contradict what we just learned: we don’t have a call to clone, but x is still valid and wasn’t moved into y.
The reason is that types such as integers that have a known size at compile time are stored entirely on the stack, so copies of the actual values are quick to make. That means there’s no reason we would want to prevent x from being valid after we create the variable y. In other words, there’s no difference between deep and shallow copying here, so calling clone wouldn’t do anything different from the usual shallow copying, and we can leave it out.
Copy trait
Rust has a special annotation called the Copy trait that we can place on types that are stored on the stack, as integers are (we’ll talk more about traits in Chapter 10). If a type implements the Copy trait, variables that use it do not move, but rather are trivially copied, making them still valid after assignment to another variable.
Rust won’t let us annotate a type with Copy if the type, or any of its parts, has implemented the Drop trait. If the type needs something special to happen when the value goes out of scope and we add the Copy annotation to that type, we’ll get a compile-time error. To learn about how to add the Copy annotation to your type to implement the trait, see “Derivable Traits” in Appendix C.
Types that implement copy
Here are some of the types that implement Copy:
All the integer types, such as u32.
The Boolean type, bool, with values true and false.
All the floating-point types, such as f64.
The character type, char.
Tuples, if they only contain types that also implement Copy. For example, (i32, i32) implements Copy, but (i32, String) does not.
Ownership when does it copy and when does it move?
fn main() {
let s = String::from("hello"); // s comes into scope
takes_ownership(s); // s's value moves into the function...
// ... and so is no longer valid here
let x = 5; // x comes into scope
makes_copy(x); // x would move into the function,
// but i32 is Copy, so it's okay to still
// use x afterward
} // Here, x goes out of scope, then s. But because s's value was moved, nothing
// special happens.
fn takes_ownership(some_string: String) { // some_string comes into scope
println!("{}", some_string);
} // Here, some_string goes out of scope and `drop` is called. The backing
// memory is freed.
fn makes_copy(some_integer: i32) { // some_integer comes into scope
println!("{}", some_integer);
} // Here, some_integer goes out of scope. Nothing special happens.Ownership when does it copy and when does it move?
fn main() {
let s1 = gives_ownership(); // gives_ownership moves its return
// value into s1
let s2 = String::from("hello"); // s2 comes into scope
let s3 = takes_and_gives_back(s2); // s2 is moved into
// takes_and_gives_back, which also
// moves its return value into s3
} // Here, s3 goes out of scope and is dropped. s2 was moved, so nothing
// happens. s1 goes out of scope and is dropped.
fn gives_ownership() -> String { // gives_ownership will move its
// return value into the function
// that calls it
let some_string = String::from("yours"); // some_string comes into scope
some_string // some_string is returned and
// moves out to the calling
// function
}
// This function takes a String and returns one
fn takes_and_gives_back(a_string: String) -> String { // a_string comes into
// scope
a_string // a_string is returned and moves out to the calling function
}Ownership when does it copy and when does it move?
fn main() {
let s1 = gives_ownership(); // gives_ownership moves its return
// value into s1
let s2 = String::from("hello"); // s2 comes into scope
let s3 = takes_and_gives_back(s2); // s2 is moved into
// takes_and_gives_back, which also
// moves its return value into s3
} // Here, s3 goes out of scope and is dropped. s2 was moved, so nothing
// happens. s1 goes out of scope and is dropped.
fn gives_ownership() -> String { // gives_ownership will move its
// return value into the function
// that calls it
let some_string = String::from("yours"); // some_string comes into scope
some_string // some_string is returned and
// moves out to the calling
// function
}
// This function takes a String and returns one
fn takes_and_gives_back(a_string: String) -> String { // a_string comes into
// scope
a_string // a_string is returned and moves out to the calling function
}
