Trait core::ops::Deref

1.0.0 · source ·

pub trait Deref {
    type Target: ?Sized;

    // Required method
    fn deref(&self) -> &Self::Target;
}

Expand description

Used for immutable dereferencing operations, like *v.

In addition to being used for explicit dereferencing operations with the (unary) * operator in immutable contexts, Deref is also used implicitly by the compiler in many circumstances. This mechanism is called ‘Deref coercion’. In mutable contexts, DerefMut is used.

Implementing Deref for smart pointers makes accessing the data behind them convenient, which is why they implement Deref. On the other hand, the rules regarding Deref and DerefMut were designed specifically to accommodate smart pointers. Because of this, Deref should only be implemented for smart pointers to avoid confusion.

For similar reasons, this trait should never fail. Failure during dereferencing can be extremely confusing when Deref is invoked implicitly.

Violating these requirements is a logic error. The behavior resulting from a logic error is not specified, but users of the trait must ensure that such logic errors do not result in undefined behavior. This means that unsafe code must not rely on the correctness of this method.

More on `Deref` coercion

If T implements Deref<Target = U>, and x is a value of type T, then:

In immutable contexts, *x (where T is neither a reference nor a raw pointer) is equivalent to *Deref::deref(&x).
Values of type &T are coerced to values of type &U
T implicitly implements all the (immutable) methods of the type U.

For more details, visit the chapter in The Rust Programming Language as well as the reference sections on the dereference operator, method resolution and type coercions.

Examples

A struct with a single field which is accessible by dereferencing the struct.

use std::ops::Deref;

struct DerefExample<T> {
    value: T
}

impl<T> Deref for DerefExample<T> {
    type Target = T;

    fn deref(&self) -> &Self::Target {
        &self.value
    }
}

let x = DerefExample { value: 'a' };
assert_eq!('a', *x);