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authorAaron Hill <aa1ronham@gmail.com>2021-02-17 21:30:39 -0500
committerAaron Hill <aa1ronham@gmail.com>2021-03-22 12:39:54 -0400
commita23273e82c8156974553e43f7d61826651397fbc (patch)
tree46a1ef0df692984d3330327ff7b2dbb112ac0344 /library/std/src/sys/unix/ext/process.rs
parentd04c3aa8656f6588c87bafafb34d51239dab98bb (diff)
downloadrust-a23273e82c8156974553e43f7d61826651397fbc.tar.gz
rust-a23273e82c8156974553e43f7d61826651397fbc.zip
Add `debug-refcell` feature to libcore
See https://rust-lang.zulipchat.com/#narrow/stream/131828-t-compiler/topic/Attaching.20backtraces.20to.20RefCell/near/226273614
for some background discussion

This PR adds a new off-by-default feature `debug-refcell` to libcore.
When enabled, this feature stores additional debugging information in
`RefCell`. This information is included in the panic message when
`borrow()` or `borrow_mut()` panics, to make it easier to track down the
source of the issue.

Currently, we store the caller location for the earliest active borrow.
This has a number of advantages:
* There is only a constant amount of overhead per `RefCell`
* We don't need any heap memory, so it can easily be implemented in core
* Since we are storing the *earliest* active borrow, we don't need any
  extra logic in the `Drop` implementation for `Ref` and `RefMut`

Limitations:
* We only store the caller location, not a full `Backtrace`. Until
  we get support for `Backtrace` in libcore, this is the best tha we can
do.
* The captured location is only displayed when `borrow()` or
  `borrow_mut()` panics. If a crate calls `try_borrow().unwrap()`
  or `try_borrow_mut().unwrap()`, this extra information will be lost.

To make testing easier, I've enabled the `debug-refcell` feature by
default. I'm not sure how to write a test for this feature - we would
need to rebuild core from the test framework, and create a separate
sysroot.

Since this feature will be off-by-default, users will need to use
`xargo` or `cargo -Z build-std` to enable this feature. For users using
a prebuilt standard library, this feature will be disabled with zero
overhead.

I've created a simple test program:

```rust
use std::cell::RefCell;

fn main() {
    let _ = std::panic::catch_unwind(|| {
        let val = RefCell::new(true);
        let _first = val.borrow();
        let _second = val.borrow();
        let _third = val.borrow_mut();
    });

    let _ = std::panic::catch_unwind(|| {
        let val  = RefCell::new(true);
        let first = val.borrow_mut();
        drop(first);

        let _second = val.borrow_mut();

        let _thid = val.borrow();
    });
}
```

which produces the following output:

```
thread 'main' panicked at 'already borrowed: BorrowMutError { location: Location { file: "refcell_test.rs", line: 6, col: 26 } }', refcell_test.rs:8:26
note: run with `RUST_BACKTRACE=1` environment variable to display a backtrace
thread 'main' panicked at 'already mutably borrowed: BorrowError { location: Location { file: "refcell_test.rs", line: 16, col: 27 } }', refcell_test.rs:18:25
```
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