Commit 01ab4f7
committed
Auto merge of #25777 - shepmaster:cstring-return-to-c, r=alexcrichton
As far as I was able to determine, it's currently *impossible* to allocate a C NUL-terminated string in Rust and then return it to C (transferring ownership), without leaking memory. There is support for passing the string to C (borrowing).
To complicate matters, it's not possible for the C code to just call `free` on the allocated string, due to the different allocators in use.
`CString` has no way to recreate itself from a pointer. This commit adds one. This is complicated a bit because Rust `Vec`s want the pointer, size, and capacity.
To deal with that, another method to shrink and "leak" the `CString` to a `char *` is also provided.
We can then use `strlen` to determine the length of the string, which must match the capacity.
**TODO**
- [x] Improve documentation
- [x] Add stability markers
- [x] Convert to `Box<[u8]>`
### Example code
With this example code:
```rust
#![feature(libc)]
#![feature(cstr_to_str)]
#![feature(c_str_memory)]
extern crate libc;
use std::ffi::{CStr,CString};
#[no_mangle]
pub extern fn reverse(s: *const libc::c_char) -> *const libc::c_char {
let s = unsafe { CStr::from_ptr(s) };
let s2 = s.to_str().unwrap();
let s3: String = s2.chars().rev().collect();
let s4 = CString::new(s3).unwrap();
s4.into_ptr()
}
#[no_mangle]
pub extern fn cleanup(s: *const libc::c_char) {
unsafe { CString::from_ptr(s) };
}
```
Compiled using `rustc --crate-type dylib str.rs`, I was able to link against it from C (`gcc -L. -l str str.c -o str`):
```c
#include <stdio.h>
extern char *reverse(char *);
extern void cleanup(char *);
int main() {
char *s = reverse("Hello, world!");
printf("%s\n", s);
cleanup(s);
}
```
As well as dynamically link via Ruby:
```ruby
require 'fiddle'
require 'fiddle/import'
module LibSum
extend Fiddle::Importer
dlload './libstr.dylib'
extern 'char* reverse(char *)'
extern 'void cleanup(char *)'
end
s = LibSum.reverse("hello, world!")
puts s
LibSum.cleanup(s)
```1 file changed
+41
-4
lines changed| Original file line number | Diff line number | Diff line change | |
|---|---|---|---|
| |||
10 | 10 | | |
11 | 11 | | |
12 | 12 | | |
13 | | - | |
| 13 | + | |
| 14 | + | |
| 15 | + | |
14 | 16 | | |
15 | 17 | | |
16 | 18 | | |
| |||
61 | 63 | | |
62 | 64 | | |
63 | 65 | | |
64 | | - | |
| 66 | + | |
65 | 67 | | |
66 | 68 | | |
67 | | - | |
| 69 | + | |
68 | 70 | | |
69 | 71 | | |
70 | 72 | | |
| |||
197 | 199 | | |
198 | 200 | | |
199 | 201 | | |
200 | | - | |
| 202 | + | |
| 203 | + | |
| 204 | + | |
| 205 | + | |
| 206 | + | |
| 207 | + | |
| 208 | + | |
| 209 | + | |
| 210 | + | |
| 211 | + | |
| 212 | + | |
| 213 | + | |
| 214 | + | |
| 215 | + | |
| 216 | + | |
| 217 | + | |
| 218 | + | |
| 219 | + | |
| 220 | + | |
| 221 | + | |
| 222 | + | |
| 223 | + | |
| 224 | + | |
| 225 | + | |
| 226 | + | |
| 227 | + | |
| 228 | + | |
| 229 | + | |
| 230 | + | |
201 | 231 | | |
202 | 232 | | |
203 | 233 | | |
| |||
217 | 247 | | |
218 | 248 | | |
219 | 249 | | |
| 250 | + | |
| 251 | + | |
| 252 | + | |
| 253 | + | |
| 254 | + | |
| 255 | + | |
| 256 | + | |
220 | 257 | | |
221 | 258 | | |
222 | 259 | | |
| |||
0 commit comments