Turning a `&T` into an `&mut T` carries a large risk of undefined
behaviour, and needs to be done very very carefully. Providing a
convenience function for exactly this task is a bad idea, just tempting
people into doing the wrong thing.
The right thing is to use types like `Cell`, `RefCell` or `Unsafe`.
For memory safety, Rust has that guarantee that `&mut` pointers do not
alias with any other pointer, that is, if you have a `&mut T` then that
is the only usable pointer to that `T`. This allows Rust to assume that
writes through a `&mut T` do not affect the values of any other `&` or
`&mut` references. `&` pointers have no guarantees about aliasing or
not, so it's entirely possible for the same pointer to be passed into
both arguments of a function like
fn foo(x: &int, y: &int) { ... }
Converting either of `x` or `y` to a `&mut` pointer and modifying it
would affect the other value: invalid behaviour.
(Similarly, it's undefined behaviour to modify the value of an immutable
local, like `let x = 1;`.)
At a low-level, the *only* safe way to obtain an `&mut` out of a `&` is
using the `Unsafe` type (there are higher level wrappers around it, like
`Cell`, `RefCell`, `Mutex` etc.). The `Unsafe` type is registered with
the compiler so that it can reason a little about these `&` to `&mut`
casts, but it is still up to the user to ensure that the `&mut`s
obtained out of an `Unsafe` never alias.
(Note that *any* conversion from `&` to `&mut` can be invalid, including
a plain `transmute`, or casting `&T` -> `*T` -> `*mut T` -> `&mut T`.)
[breaking-change]
This removes the now-outdated MutexArc and RWArc types. These are superseded by
Arc<Mutex<T>> and Arc<RWLock<T>>. The only remaining arc is the one true Arc.
Additionally, the arc now has weak pointers implemented for it to assist in
breaking cycles.
This commit brings the arc api up to parity with the sibling Rc api, making them
nearly interchangeable for inter and intra task communication.
With Rc no longer trying to statically prevent cycles (and thus no
longer using the Freeze bound), it seems appropriate to remove that
restriction from MutexArc as well.
