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function pointers as match patterns have optimization-dependent behavior #70861

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@pnkfelix

I tried this code, supplied by @eddyb play:

#![feature(test)]
use std::hint::black_box;

fn foo() {}
const FOO: fn() = foo;

fn bar() {}
const BAR: fn() = bar;

#[inline(never)]
fn print(s: &str) {
    println!("{}", s);
}

fn main() {
    match black_box(FOO) {
        FOO => print("FOO"),
        BAR => print("BAR"),
        _ => unreachable!(),
    }
    
    match black_box(FOO) {
        BAR => print("BAR"),
        FOO => print("FOO"),
        _ => unreachable!(),
    }
    
    match black_box(BAR) {
        FOO => print("FOO"),
        BAR => print("BAR"),
        _ => unreachable!(),
    }
    
    match black_box(BAR) {
        BAR => print("BAR"),
        FOO => print("FOO"),
        _ => unreachable!(),
    }
}

I expected to see this happen: print out of

FOO
FOO
BAR
BAR

(and in debug builds, that is what happens).

Instead, this happened: in release builds, it prints:

FOO
BAR
FOO
BAR

Meta

This was on a playpen running 1.44.0-nightly, 2020-04-05.

This all arose from a conversation with @eddyb regarding structural match; you can read it on the zulip archive

cc #31434

Activity

  1. pnkfelix commented on Apr 6, 2020

    @pnkfelix
    ContributorAuthor

    It is not clear to me what the best thing to do here is. @eddyb would like to disallow matching against function pointer constants entirely. I am thinking it might be better to issue a lint, since I know from experience some people simply are doing this, for better or for worse, and I suspect that its not a soundness issue, just a potential gotcha.

    Also, for you archeaologists out there, here is a classic rrrs-authors thread on this subject.

    Update: and yes, in case you were wondering, the scheme specifiers are still debating this matter nearly 30 years later: http://scheme-reports.org/mail/scheme-reports/msg03616.html

  2. eddyb commented on Apr 6, 2020

    @eddyb
    Contributor

    The scary thing to me is this same thing happening with const generics, because they use the same "structural match" requirement.
    (but there's no "runtime value" there, so it's more nebulous in a different way I suppose)

  3. eddyb commented on Apr 6, 2020

    @eddyb
    Contributor

    Looks like this is where the whitelisting is missing:

    _ => PatKind::Constant { value: cv },

  4. eddyb commented on Apr 7, 2020

    @eddyb
    Contributor

    Very disconcertingly, it doesn't look like we turn &T constants into reference patterns, which means we can't fully correctly check leaves behind them (and I'm scared to look at how anything works with them, are they lazily expanded?).

    Fixing that should probably be a priority, I wonder if @oli-obk already has plans for this.

  5. oli-obk commented on Apr 7, 2020

    @oli-obk
    Contributor

    Not just that, I have an implementation of it! #70743

  6. eddyb commented on Apr 7, 2020

    @eddyb
    Contributor

    Ah, thanks, I vaguely remembered some discussion, I should've checked your PRs first, sorry!

  7. hanna-kruppe commented on Apr 7, 2020

    @hanna-kruppe
    Contributor

    I believe the non-deterministic comparison of function pointers is already tracked by #54685, though the question of what to do about it w.r.t. patterns seems novel and worth tracking independently.

  8. eddyb commented on Apr 7, 2020

    @eddyb
    Contributor

    Yesterday I wrote (#70861 (comment)):

    The scary thing to me is this same thing happening with const generics, because they use the same "structural match" requirement.
    (but there's no "runtime value" there, so it's more nebulous in a different way I suppose)

    But today I filed #70889, due to which we might need to do a completely separate check for const generics, so we don't have to be as strict on pattern match-ing anyway.

  9. RalfJung commented on Apr 8, 2020

    @RalfJung
    Member

    I think this is basically a duplicate of #54685, caused by unnamed_addr.

    though the question of what to do about it w.r.t. patterns seems novel and worth tracking independently.

    match with a constant and == are just two different ways to write a comparison. This definitely should be mentioned in the other issue but I feel separate tracking is confusing.

  10. added
    T-compilerRelevant to the compiler team, which will review and decide on the PR/issue.
    on Apr 9, 2020
  11. pnkfelix commented on Apr 28, 2020

    @pnkfelix
    ContributorAuthor

    I think this is basically a duplicate of #54685, caused by unnamed_addr.

    though the question of what to do about it w.r.t. patterns seems novel and worth tracking independently.

    match with a constant and == are just two different ways to write a comparison. This definitely should be mentioned in the other issue but I feel separate tracking is confusing.

    Separate tracking may indeed be confusing, but I just want to note that I do not consider match with a constant to be equivalent to using ==.

    In particular, the point of rust-lang/rfcs#1445 is that the compiler has not historically treated such matches as being equivalent to == (namely in cases where PartialEq has not been implemented via #[derive(..)]), and we did not want to commit at that time to choosing between so-called "structural" vs "semantic" equality.

    Having said that, certainly this is related to #54685, and it may indeed be a good idea to merge these two tickets. But I want to make sure we do it for the right reason.

  12. RalfJung commented on Jan 9, 2024

    @RalfJung
    Member

    This code causes forward-compat lints now, so once pointer_structural_match is a hard error this can be closed. (Cc #62411)

  13. added a commit that references this issue on May 3, 2024
  14. added a commit that references this issue on May 26, 2024
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