Accept 0 as a valid str char boundary

Index 0 must be a valid char boundary (invariant of str that it contains
valid UTF-8 data).

If we check explicitly for index == 0, that removes the need to read the
byte at index 0, so it avoids a trip to the string's memory, and it
optimizes out the slicing index' bounds check whenever it is zero.

With this change, the following examples all change from having a read of
the byte at 0 and a branch to possibly panicing, to having the bounds
checking optimized away.

```rust
pub fn split(s: &str) -> (&str, &str) {
    s.split_at(0)
}

pub fn both(s: &str) -> &str {
    &s[0..s.len()]
}

pub fn first(s: &str) -> &str {
    &s[..0]
}

pub fn last(s: &str) -> &str {
    &s[0..]
}
```

1 files changed, 4 insertions, 1 deletions

diff --git a/src/libcore/str/mod.rs b/src/libcore/str/mod.rs
index 4584c26bebc..f033f50e59e 100644
--- a/src/libcore/str/mod.rs
+++ b/src/libcore/str/mod.rs
@@ -1892,7 +1892,10 @@ impl StrExt for str {
 
     #[inline]
     fn is_char_boundary(&self, index: usize) -> bool {
-        if index == self.len() { return true; }
+        // 0 and len are always ok.
+        // Test for 0 explicitly so that it can optimize out the check
+        // easily and skip reading string data for that case.
+        if index == 0 || index == self.len() { return true; }
         match self.as_bytes().get(index) {
             None => false,
             Some(&b) => b < 128 || b >= 192,