linux/rust
Gary Guo e189bdb687 rust: types: add ForLt trait for higher-ranked lifetime support
There are a few cases, e.g. when dealing with data referencing each
other, one might want to write code that is generic over lifetimes. For
example, if you want to take a function that takes `&'a Foo` and gives
`Bar<'a>`, you can write:

    f: impl for<'a> FnOnce(&'a Foo) -> Bar<'a>,

However, it becomes tricky when you want that function to not have a
fixed `Bar`, but have it be generic again. In this case, one needs
something that is generic over types that are themselves generic over
lifetimes.

`ForLt` provides such support. It provides a trait `ForLt` which
describes a type generic over a lifetime. One may use `ForLt::Of<'a>` to
get an instance of a type for a specific lifetime.

For the case of cross referencing, one would almost always want the
lifetime to be covariant. Therefore this is also made a requirement for
the `ForLt` trait, so functions with `ForLt` trait bound can assume
covariance.

A macro `ForLt!()` is provided to be able to obtain a type that
implements `ForLt`. For example, `ForLt!(for<'a> Bar<'a>)` would yield a
type that `<TheType as ForLt>::Of<'a>` is `Bar<'a>`. This also works
with lifetime elision, e.g. `ForLt!(Bar<'_>)` or for types without
lifetime at all, e.g. `ForLt!(u32)`.

The API design draws inspiration from the higher-kinded-types [1] crate,
however a different design decision has been taken (e.g. covariance
requirement) and the implementation is independent.

License headers use "Apache-2.0 OR MIT" because I anticipate this to be
used in pin-init crate too which is licensed as such.

Link: https://docs.rs/higher-kinded-types/ [1]
Reviewed-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>
Reviewed-by: Eliot Courtney <ecourtney@nvidia.com>
Signed-off-by: Gary Guo <gary@garyguo.net>
Acked-by: Miguel Ojeda <ojeda@kernel.org>
Reviewed-by: Alexandre Courbot <acourbot@nvidia.com>
Link: https://patch.msgid.link/20260525202921.124698-23-dakr@kernel.org
[ Handle macro_rules! invocations in the ForLt! proc macro's covariance
  and WF checks. Since proc macros cannot expand macro_rules!, add a
  visit_macro() implementation to conservatively assume macro
  invocations may contain lifetimes, forcing them through the
  compiler-assisted covariance proof.

  Fix a few typos in the documentation and in the commit message, add
  empty lines before samples, add missing periods and consistently use
  markdown.

  - Danilo ]
Signed-off-by: Danilo Krummrich <dakr@kernel.org>
2026-05-27 16:24:59 +02:00
..
bindings drm for v7.1-rc1 2026-04-15 08:45:00 -07:00
helpers drm for v7.1-rc1 2026-04-15 08:45:00 -07:00
kernel rust: types: add ForLt trait for higher-ranked lifetime support 2026-05-27 16:24:59 +02:00
macros rust: types: add ForLt trait for higher-ranked lifetime support 2026-05-27 16:24:59 +02:00
pin-init rust: pin-init: replace addr_of_mut! with &raw mut 2026-03-25 10:57:53 +01:00
proc-macro2 rust: proc-macro2: rebuild if the version text changes 2026-01-23 10:44:27 +01:00
quote rust: quote: add README.md 2025-11-24 17:15:43 +01:00
syn rust: syn: add README.md 2025-11-24 17:15:47 +01:00
uapi rust: declare cfi_encoding for lru_status 2026-04-07 10:00:25 +02:00
.gitignore
.kunitconfig rust: add kunitconfig 2025-03-19 23:22:21 +01:00
bindgen_parameters rust: declare cfi_encoding for lru_status 2026-04-07 10:00:25 +02:00
build_error.rs
compiler_builtins.rs ARM: 9441/1: rust: Enable Rust support for ARMv7 2025-03-26 13:31:16 +00:00
exports.c kbuild: rust: provide an option to inline C helpers into Rust 2026-03-30 02:03:52 +02:00
ffi.rs rust: replace CStr with core::ffi::CStr 2025-10-22 07:47:27 +02:00
Makefile rust: types: add ForLt trait for higher-ranked lifetime support 2026-05-27 16:24:59 +02:00