Merge PR #310: Add a section for the never type change

Author: traviscross

src/SUMMARY.md

@@ -49,5 +49,6 @@
   - [Rustfmt: Combine all delimited exprs as last argument](rust-2024/rustfmt-overflow-delimited-expr.md)
   - [`gen` keyword](rust-2024/gen-keyword.md)
   - [Macro fragment specifiers](rust-2024/macro-fragment-specifiers.md)
+  - [Never type fallback change](rust-2024/never-type-fallback.md)
   - [`unsafe extern` blocks](rust-2024/unsafe-extern.md)
   - [Unsafe attributes](rust-2024/unsafe-attributes.md)

src/rust-2024/never-type-fallback.md

@@ -0,0 +1,154 @@
+# Never type fallback change
+
+🚧 The 2024 Edition has not yet been released and hence this section is still "under construction".
+
+## Summary
+
+- Never type (`!`) to any type ("never-to-any") coercions fall back to never type (`!`) rather than to unit type (`()`).
+
+## Details
+
+When the compiler sees a value of type `!` (never) in a [coercion site][], it implicitly inserts a coercion to allow the type checker to infer any type:
+
+```rust,should_panic
+# #![feature(never_type)]
+// This:
+let x: u8 = panic!();
+
+// ...is (essentially) turned by the compiler into:
+let x: u8 = absurd(panic!());
+
+// ...where `absurd` is the following function
+// (it's sound because `!` always marks unreachable code):
+fn absurd<T>(x: !) -> T { x }
+```
+
+This can lead to compilation errors if the type cannot be inferred:
+
+```rust,compile_fail,E0282
+# #![feature(never_type)]
+# fn absurd<T>(x: !) -> T { x }
+// This:
+{ panic!() };
+
+// ...gets turned into this:
+{ absurd(panic!()) }; //~ ERROR can't infer the type of `absurd`
+```
+
+To prevent such errors, the compiler remembers where it inserted `absurd` calls, and if it can't infer the type, it uses the fallback type instead:
+
+```rust,should_panic
+# #![feature(never_type)]
+# fn absurd<T>(x: !) -> T { x }
+type Fallback = /* An arbitrarily selected type! */ !;
+{ absurd::<Fallback>(panic!()) }
+```
+
+This is what is known as "never type fallback".
+
+Historically, the fallback type has been `()` (unit).  This caused `!` to spontaneously coerce to `()` even when the compiler would not infer `()` without the fallback.  That was confusing and has prevented the stabilization of the `!` type.
+
+In the 2024 edition, the fallback type is now `!`.  (We plan to make this change across all editions at a later date.)  This makes things work more intuitively.  Now when you pass `!` and there is no reason to coerce it to something else, it is kept as `!`.
+
+In some cases your code might depend on the fallback type being `()`, so this can cause compilation errors or changes in behavior.
+
+[coercion site]: ../../reference/type-coercions.html#coercion-sites
+
+## Migration
+
+There is no automatic fix, but there is automatic detection of code that will be broken by the edition change.  While still on a previous edition you will see warnings if your code will be broken.
+
+The fix is to specify the type explicitly so that the fallback type is not used.  Unfortunately, it might not be trivial to see which type needs to be specified.
+
+One of the most common patterns broken by this change is using `f()?;` where `f` is generic over the `Ok`-part of the return type:
+
+```rust
+# #![allow(dependency_on_unit_never_type_fallback)]
+# fn outer<T>(x: T) -> Result<T, ()> {
+fn f<T: Default>() -> Result<T, ()> {
+    Ok(T::default())
+}
+
+f()?;
+# Ok(x)
+# }
+```
+
+You might think that, in this example, type `T` can't be inferred.  However, due to the current desugaring of the `?` operator, it was inferred as `()`, and it will now be inferred as `!`.
+
+To fix the issue you need to specify the `T` type explicitly:
+
+<!-- TODO: edition2024 -->
+```rust
+# #![deny(dependency_on_unit_never_type_fallback)]
+# fn outer<T>(x: T) -> Result<T, ()> {
+# fn f<T: Default>() -> Result<T, ()> {
+#     Ok(T::default())
+# }
+f::<()>()?;
+// ...or:
+() = f()?;
+# Ok(x)
+# }
+```
+
+Another relatively common case is panicking in a closure:
+
+```rust,should_panic
+# #![allow(dependency_on_unit_never_type_fallback)]
+trait Unit {}
+impl Unit for () {}
+
+fn run<R: Unit>(f: impl FnOnce() -> R) {
+    f();
+}
+
+run(|| panic!());
+```
+
+Previously `!` from the `panic!` coerced to `()` which implements `Unit`.  However now the `!` is kept as `!` so this code fails because `!` doesn't implement `Unit`.  To fix this you can specify the return type of the closure:
+
+<!-- TODO: edition2024 -->
+```rust,should_panic
+# #![deny(dependency_on_unit_never_type_fallback)]
+# trait Unit {}
+# impl Unit for () {}
+#
+# fn run<R: Unit>(f: impl FnOnce() -> R) {
+#     f();
+# }
+run(|| -> () { panic!() });
+```
+
+A similar case to that of `f()?` can be seen when using a `!`-typed expression in one branch and a function with an unconstrained return type in the other:
+
+```rust
+# #![allow(dependency_on_unit_never_type_fallback)]
+if true {
+    Default::default()
+} else {
+    return
+};
+```
+
+Previously `()` was inferred as the return type of `Default::default()` because `!` from `return` was spuriously coerced to `()`.  Now, `!` will be inferred instead causing this code to not compile because `!` does not implement `Default`.
+
+Again, this can be fixed by specifying the type explicitly:
+
+<!-- TODO: edition2024 -->
+```rust
+# #![deny(dependency_on_unit_never_type_fallback)]
+() = if true {
+    Default::default()
+} else {
+    return
+};
+
+// ...or:
+
+if true {
+    <() as Default>::default()
+} else {
+    return
+};
+```