Trait kernel::AlwaysRefCounted
source · [−]Expand description
Types that are always reference counted.
It allows such types to define their own custom ref increment and decrement functions.
Additionally, it allows users to convert from a shared reference &T
to an owned reference
ARef<T>
.
This is usually implemented by wrappers to existing structures on the C side of the code. For
Rust code, the recommendation is to use Ref
to create reference-counted instances of a
type.
Safety
Implementers must ensure that increments to the reference count keeps the object alive in memory at least until a matching decrement performed.
Implementers must also ensure that all instances are reference-counted. (Otherwise they
won’t be able to honour the requirement that AlwaysRefCounted::inc_ref
keep the object
alive.)
Required Methods
Decrements the reference count on the object.
Frees the object when the count reaches zero.
Safety
Callers must ensure that there was a previous matching increment to the reference count,
and that the object is no longer used after its reference count is decremented (as it may
result in the object being freed), unless the caller owns another increment on the refcount
(e.g., it calls AlwaysRefCounted::inc_ref
twice, then calls
AlwaysRefCounted::dec_ref
once).