I recently ran into an issue where I wanted to use Any for slices. However, it only allows 'static types (based on what I read, this is because you get the same TypeId regardless of lifetimes).

I came up with this workaround which I think is safe:

use std::{
    any::{Any, TypeId},
    marker::PhantomData,
};

#[derive(Clone, Debug)]
pub struct AnySlice<'a> {
    tid: TypeId,
    len: usize,
    ptr: *const (),
    marker: PhantomData<&'a ()>,
}

impl<'a> AnySlice<'a> {
    pub fn from_slice(s: &'a [T]) -> Self {
        Self {
            len: s.len(),
            ptr: s.as_ptr() as *const (),
            tid: TypeId::of::(),
            marker: PhantomData,
        }
    }

    pub fn as_slice(&self) -> Option<&'a [T]> {
        if TypeId::of::() != self.tid {
            return None;
        }
        Some(unsafe { std::slice::from_raw_parts(self.ptr as *const T, self.len) })
    }

    pub fn is(&self) -> bool {
        TypeId::of::() == self.tid
    }
}

edit: Unfortunately it seems like Lemmy insists on mangling the code block. See the playground link below.

T: Any ensures T is also 'static. The lifetime is preserved with PhantomData. Here’s a playground link with some simple tests and a mut version: https://play.rust-lang.org/?version=stable&mode=debug&edition=2021&gist=3116a404c28317c46dbba6ed6824c8a9

It seems to pass Miri, including the mut version (which requires a bit more care to ensure there can only be one mutable reference). Any problems with doing this?

  • KerfuffleOPEnglish
    2·
    1 year ago

    The more I think about it, the more I’m convinced the immutable slice version is safe. I’m pretty sure the mutable version in the playground is also safe because you can’t turn it into a mutable reference without consuming it and it requires a mutable reference to build.

    The mutable version is pretty inconvenient to actually use if you want to store the AnySliceMut and pass it to other functions. The other function would have to reconstruct it and pass it back once it was done with the mutable reference. But what if:

    // ^ impl AnySliceMut
    pub unsafe fn as_slice_mut(&mut self) -> Option<&'a mut [T]> {
        if TypeId::of::() != self.tid {
            return None;
        }
        Some(unsafe { std::slice::from_raw_parts_mut(self.ptr as *mut T, self.len) })
    }

    Obviously it’s possible to abuse but if I just do something like pass it to a function that takes a mut ref and that function doesn’t do anything weird like save the reference is this okay? MIRI is apparently okay with it: https://play.rust-lang.org/?version=nightly&mode=debug&edition=2021&gist=149ad441a1c66b3f1fd7f2107acbeccf