| //! Utilities related to FFI bindings. |
| //! |
| //! This module provides utilities to handle data across non-Rust |
| //! interfaces, like other programming languages and the underlying |
| //! operating system. It is mainly of use for FFI (Foreign Function |
| //! Interface) bindings and code that needs to exchange C-like strings |
| //! with other languages. |
| //! |
| //! # Overview |
| //! |
| //! Rust represents owned strings with the [`String`] type, and |
| //! borrowed slices of strings with the [`str`] primitive. Both are |
| //! always in UTF-8 encoding, and may contain nul bytes in the middle, |
| //! i.e., if you look at the bytes that make up the string, there may |
| //! be a `\0` among them. Both `String` and `str` store their length |
| //! explicitly; there are no nul terminators at the end of strings |
| //! like in C. |
| //! |
| //! C strings are different from Rust strings: |
| //! |
| //! * **Encodings** - Rust strings are UTF-8, but C strings may use |
| //! other encodings. If you are using a string from C, you should |
| //! check its encoding explicitly, rather than just assuming that it |
| //! is UTF-8 like you can do in Rust. |
| //! |
| //! * **Character size** - C strings may use `char` or `wchar_t`-sized |
| //! characters; please **note** that C's `char` is different from Rust's. |
| //! The C standard leaves the actual sizes of those types open to |
| //! interpretation, but defines different APIs for strings made up of |
| //! each character type. Rust strings are always UTF-8, so different |
| //! Unicode characters will be encoded in a variable number of bytes |
| //! each. The Rust type [`char`] represents a '[Unicode scalar |
| //! value]', which is similar to, but not the same as, a '[Unicode |
| //! code point]'. |
| //! |
| //! * **Nul terminators and implicit string lengths** - Often, C |
| //! strings are nul-terminated, i.e., they have a `\0` character at the |
| //! end. The length of a string buffer is not stored, but has to be |
| //! calculated; to compute the length of a string, C code must |
| //! manually call a function like `strlen()` for `char`-based strings, |
| //! or `wcslen()` for `wchar_t`-based ones. Those functions return |
| //! the number of characters in the string excluding the nul |
| //! terminator, so the buffer length is really `len+1` characters. |
| //! Rust strings don't have a nul terminator; their length is always |
| //! stored and does not need to be calculated. While in Rust |
| //! accessing a string's length is an *O*(1) operation (because the |
| //! length is stored); in C it is an *O*(*n*) operation because the |
| //! length needs to be computed by scanning the string for the nul |
| //! terminator. |
| //! |
| //! * **Internal nul characters** - When C strings have a nul |
| //! terminator character, this usually means that they cannot have nul |
| //! characters in the middle — a nul character would essentially |
| //! truncate the string. Rust strings *can* have nul characters in |
| //! the middle, because nul does not have to mark the end of the |
| //! string in Rust. |
| //! |
| //! # Representations of non-Rust strings |
| //! |
| //! [`CString`] and [`CStr`] are useful when you need to transfer |
| //! UTF-8 strings to and from languages with a C ABI, like Python. |
| //! |
| //! * **From Rust to C:** [`CString`] represents an owned, C-friendly |
| //! string: it is nul-terminated, and has no internal nul characters. |
| //! Rust code can create a [`CString`] out of a normal string (provided |
| //! that the string doesn't have nul characters in the middle), and |
| //! then use a variety of methods to obtain a raw <code>\*mut [u8]</code> that can |
| //! then be passed as an argument to functions which use the C |
| //! conventions for strings. |
| //! |
| //! * **From C to Rust:** [`CStr`] represents a borrowed C string; it |
| //! is what you would use to wrap a raw <code>\*const [u8]</code> that you got from |
| //! a C function. A [`CStr`] is guaranteed to be a nul-terminated array |
| //! of bytes. Once you have a [`CStr`], you can convert it to a Rust |
| //! <code>&[str]</code> if it's valid UTF-8, or lossily convert it by adding |
| //! replacement characters. |
| //! |
| //! [`OsString`] and [`OsStr`] are useful when you need to transfer |
| //! strings to and from the operating system itself, or when capturing |
| //! the output of external commands. Conversions between [`OsString`], |
| //! [`OsStr`] and Rust strings work similarly to those for [`CString`] |
| //! and [`CStr`]. |
| //! |
| //! * [`OsString`] losslessly represents an owned platform string. However, this |
| //! representation is not necessarily in a form native to the platform. |
| //! In the Rust standard library, various APIs that transfer strings to/from the operating |
| //! system use [`OsString`] instead of plain strings. For example, |
| //! [`env::var_os()`] is used to query environment variables; it |
| //! returns an <code>[Option]<[OsString]></code>. If the environment variable |
| //! exists you will get a <code>[Some]\(os_string)</code>, which you can |
| //! *then* try to convert to a Rust string. This yields a [`Result`], so that |
| //! your code can detect errors in case the environment variable did |
| //! not in fact contain valid Unicode data. |
| //! |
| //! * [`OsStr`] losslessly represents a borrowed reference to a platform string. |
| //! However, this representation is not necessarily in a form native to the platform. |
| //! It can be converted into a UTF-8 Rust string slice in a similar way to |
| //! [`OsString`]. |
| //! |
| //! # Conversions |
| //! |
| //! ## On Unix |
| //! |
| //! On Unix, [`OsStr`] implements the |
| //! <code>std::os::unix::ffi::[OsStrExt][unix.OsStrExt]</code> trait, which |
| //! augments it with two methods, [`from_bytes`] and [`as_bytes`]. |
| //! These do inexpensive conversions from and to byte slices. |
| //! |
| //! Additionally, on Unix [`OsString`] implements the |
| //! <code>std::os::unix::ffi::[OsStringExt][unix.OsStringExt]</code> trait, |
| //! which provides [`from_vec`] and [`into_vec`] methods that consume |
| //! their arguments, and take or produce vectors of [`u8`]. |
| //! |
| //! ## On Windows |
| //! |
| //! An [`OsStr`] can be losslessly converted to a native Windows string. And |
| //! a native Windows string can be losslessly converted to an [`OsString`]. |
| //! |
| //! On Windows, [`OsStr`] implements the |
| //! <code>std::os::windows::ffi::[OsStrExt][windows.OsStrExt]</code> trait, |
| //! which provides an [`encode_wide`] method. This provides an |
| //! iterator that can be [`collect`]ed into a vector of [`u16`]. After a nul |
| //! characters is appended, this is the same as a native Windows string. |
| //! |
| //! Additionally, on Windows [`OsString`] implements the |
| //! <code>std::os::windows:ffi::[OsStringExt][windows.OsStringExt]</code> |
| //! trait, which provides a [`from_wide`] method to convert a native Windows |
| //! string (without the terminating nul character) to an [`OsString`]. |
| //! |
| //! ## Other platforms |
| //! |
| //! Many other platforms provide their own extension traits in a |
| //! `std::os::*::ffi` module. |
| //! |
| //! ## On all platforms |
| //! |
| //! On all platforms, [`OsStr`] consists of a sequence of bytes that is encoded as a superset of |
| //! UTF-8; see [`OsString`] for more details on its encoding on different platforms. |
| //! |
| //! For limited, inexpensive conversions from and to bytes, see [`OsStr::as_encoded_bytes`] and |
| //! [`OsStr::from_encoded_bytes_unchecked`]. |
| //! |
| //! For basic string processing, see [`OsStr::slice_encoded_bytes`]. |
| //! |
| //! [Unicode scalar value]: https://www.unicode.org/glossary/#unicode_scalar_value |
| //! [Unicode code point]: https://www.unicode.org/glossary/#code_point |
| //! [`env::set_var()`]: crate::env::set_var "env::set_var" |
| //! [`env::var_os()`]: crate::env::var_os "env::var_os" |
| //! [unix.OsStringExt]: crate::os::unix::ffi::OsStringExt "os::unix::ffi::OsStringExt" |
| //! [`from_vec`]: crate::os::unix::ffi::OsStringExt::from_vec "os::unix::ffi::OsStringExt::from_vec" |
| //! [`into_vec`]: crate::os::unix::ffi::OsStringExt::into_vec "os::unix::ffi::OsStringExt::into_vec" |
| //! [unix.OsStrExt]: crate::os::unix::ffi::OsStrExt "os::unix::ffi::OsStrExt" |
| //! [`from_bytes`]: crate::os::unix::ffi::OsStrExt::from_bytes "os::unix::ffi::OsStrExt::from_bytes" |
| //! [`as_bytes`]: crate::os::unix::ffi::OsStrExt::as_bytes "os::unix::ffi::OsStrExt::as_bytes" |
| //! [`OsStrExt`]: crate::os::unix::ffi::OsStrExt "os::unix::ffi::OsStrExt" |
| //! [windows.OsStrExt]: crate::os::windows::ffi::OsStrExt "os::windows::ffi::OsStrExt" |
| //! [`encode_wide`]: crate::os::windows::ffi::OsStrExt::encode_wide "os::windows::ffi::OsStrExt::encode_wide" |
| //! [`collect`]: crate::iter::Iterator::collect "iter::Iterator::collect" |
| //! [windows.OsStringExt]: crate::os::windows::ffi::OsStringExt "os::windows::ffi::OsStringExt" |
| //! [`from_wide`]: crate::os::windows::ffi::OsStringExt::from_wide "os::windows::ffi::OsStringExt::from_wide" |
| |
| #![stable(feature = "rust1", since = "1.0.0")] |
| |
| #[unstable(feature = "c_str_module", issue = "112134")] |
| pub mod c_str; |
| |
| #[stable(feature = "core_c_void", since = "1.30.0")] |
| pub use core::ffi::c_void; |
| #[unstable( |
| feature = "c_variadic", |
| reason = "the `c_variadic` feature has not been properly tested on \ |
| all supported platforms", |
| issue = "44930" |
| )] |
| pub use core::ffi::{VaList, VaListImpl}; |
| #[stable(feature = "core_ffi_c", since = "1.64.0")] |
| pub use core::ffi::{ |
| c_char, c_double, c_float, c_int, c_long, c_longlong, c_schar, c_short, c_uchar, c_uint, |
| c_ulong, c_ulonglong, c_ushort, |
| }; |
| |
| #[doc(no_inline)] |
| #[stable(feature = "cstr_from_bytes_until_nul", since = "1.69.0")] |
| pub use self::c_str::FromBytesUntilNulError; |
| #[doc(no_inline)] |
| #[stable(feature = "cstr_from_bytes", since = "1.10.0")] |
| pub use self::c_str::FromBytesWithNulError; |
| #[doc(no_inline)] |
| #[stable(feature = "cstring_from_vec_with_nul", since = "1.58.0")] |
| pub use self::c_str::FromVecWithNulError; |
| #[doc(no_inline)] |
| #[stable(feature = "cstring_into", since = "1.7.0")] |
| pub use self::c_str::IntoStringError; |
| #[doc(no_inline)] |
| #[stable(feature = "rust1", since = "1.0.0")] |
| pub use self::c_str::NulError; |
| #[doc(inline)] |
| #[stable(feature = "rust1", since = "1.0.0")] |
| pub use self::c_str::{CStr, CString}; |
| #[stable(feature = "rust1", since = "1.0.0")] |
| #[doc(inline)] |
| pub use self::os_str::{OsStr, OsString}; |
| |
| #[unstable(feature = "os_str_display", issue = "120048")] |
| pub mod os_str; |