diff --git a/src/libcore/mem.rs b/src/libcore/mem.rs index 0cde23cde40f1..87dde9066019c 100644 --- a/src/libcore/mem.rs +++ b/src/libcore/mem.rs @@ -530,6 +530,12 @@ pub unsafe fn zeroed() -> T { /// it goes out of scope (and therefore would be dropped). Note that this /// includes a `panic` occurring and unwinding the stack suddenly. /// +/// If you partially initialize an array, you may need to use +/// [`ptr::drop_in_place`][drop_in_place] to remove the elements you have fully +/// initialized followed by [`mem::forget`][mem_forget] to prevent drop running +/// on the array. If a partially allocated array is dropped this will lead to +/// undefined behaviour. +/// /// # Examples /// /// Here's how to safely initialize an array of [`Vec`]s. @@ -583,11 +589,44 @@ pub unsafe fn zeroed() -> T { /// println!("{:?}", &data[0]); /// ``` /// +/// This example shows how to handle partially initialized arrays, which could +/// be found in low-level datastructures. +/// +/// ``` +/// use std::mem; +/// use std::ptr; +/// +/// // Count the number of elements we have assigned. +/// let mut data_len: usize = 0; +/// let mut data: [String; 1000]; +/// +/// unsafe { +/// data = mem::uninitialized(); +/// +/// for elem in &mut data[0..500] { +/// ptr::write(elem, String::from("hello")); +/// data_len += 1; +/// } +/// +/// // For each item in the array, drop if we allocated it. +/// for i in &mut data[0..data_len] { +/// ptr::drop_in_place(i); +/// } +/// } +/// // Forget the data. If this is allowed to drop, you may see a crash such as: +/// // 'mem_uninit_test(2457,0x7fffb55dd380) malloc: *** error for object +/// // 0x7ff3b8402920: pointer being freed was not allocated' +/// mem::forget(data); +/// ``` +/// /// [`Vec`]: ../../std/vec/struct.Vec.html /// [`vec!`]: ../../std/macro.vec.html /// [`Clone`]: ../../std/clone/trait.Clone.html /// [ub]: ../../reference/behavior-considered-undefined.html /// [write]: ../ptr/fn.write.html +/// [drop_in_place]: ../ptr/fn.drop_in_place.html +/// [mem_zeroed]: fn.zeroed.html +/// [mem_forget]: fn.forget.html /// [copy]: ../intrinsics/fn.copy.html /// [copy_no]: ../intrinsics/fn.copy_nonoverlapping.html /// [`Drop`]: ../ops/trait.Drop.html