
[TOC]

# Understanding Ownership

Ownership is Rust’s most unique feature, and it enables Rust to make memory
safety guarantees without needing a garbage collector. Therefore, it’s
important to understand how ownership works in Rust. In this chapter, we’ll
talk about ownership as well as several related features: borrowing, slices,
and how Rust lays data out in memory.

## What Is Ownership?

Rust’s central feature is *ownership*. Although the feature is straightforward
to explain, it has deep implications for the rest of the language.

All programs have to manage the way they use a computer’s memory while running.
Some languages have garbage collection that constantly looks for no longer used
memory as the program runs; in other languages, the programmer must explicitly
allocate and free the memory. Rust uses a third approach: memory is managed
through a system of ownership with a set of rules that the compiler checks at
compile time. None of the ownership features slow down your program while it’s
running.

Because ownership is a new concept for many programmers, it does take some time
to get used to. The good news is that the more experienced you become with Rust
and the rules of the ownership system, the more you’ll be able to naturally
develop code that is safe and efficient. Keep at it!

When you understand ownership, you’ll have a solid foundation for understanding
the features that make Rust unique. In this chapter, you’ll learn ownership by
working through some examples that focus on a very common data structure:
strings.



### The Stack and the Heap

In many programming languages, you don’t have to think about the stack and
the heap very often. But in a systems programming language like Rust, whether
a value is on the stack or the heap has more of an effect on how the language
behaves and why you have to make certain decisions. Parts of ownership will
be described in relation to the stack and the heap later in this chapter, so
here is a brief explanation in preparation.

Both the stack and the heap are parts of memory that is available to your code
to use at runtime, but they are structured in different ways. The stack stores
values in the order it gets them and removes the values in the opposite order.
This is referred to as *last in, first out*. Think of a stack of plates: when
you add more plates, you put them on top of the pile, and when you need a
plate, you take one off the top. Adding or removing plates from the middle or
bottom wouldn’t work as well! Adding data is called *pushing onto the stack*,
and removing data is called *popping off the stack*.

The stack is fast because of the way it accesses the data: it never has to
search for a place to put new data or a place to get data from because that
place is always the top. Another property that makes the stack fast is that
all data on the stack must take up a known, fixed size.

Data with a size unknown at compile time or a size that might change can be
stored on the heap instead. The heap is less organized: when you put data on
the heap, you ask for some amount of space. The operating system finds an
empty spot somewhere in the heap that is big enough, marks it as being in
use, and returns a *pointer*, which is the address of that location. This
process is called *allocating on the heap*, sometimes abbreviated as just
“allocating.” Pushing values onto the stack is not considered allocating.
Because the pointer is a known, fixed size, you can store the pointer on the
stack, but when you want the actual data, you have to follow the pointer.

Think of being seated at a restaurant. When you enter, you state the number of
people in your group, and the staff finds an empty table that fits everyone
and leads you there. If someone in your group comes late, they can ask where
you’ve been seated to find you.

Accessing data in the heap is slower than accessing data on the stack because
you have to follow a pointer to get there. Contemporary processors are faster
if they jump around less in memory. Continuing the analogy, consider a server
at a restaurant taking orders from many tables. It’s most efficient to get
all the orders at one table before moving on to the next table. Taking an
order from table A, then an order from table B, then one from A again, and
then one from B again would be a much slower process. By the same token, a
processor can do its job better if it works on data that’s close to other
data (as it is on the stack) rather than farther away (as it can be on the
heap). Allocating a large amount of space on the heap can also take time.

When your code calls a function, the values passed into the function
(including, potentially, pointers to data on the heap) and the function’s
local variables get pushed onto the stack. When the function is over, those
values get popped off the stack.

Keeping track of what parts of code are using what data on the heap,
minimizing the amount of duplicate data on the heap, and cleaning up unused
data on the heap so you don’t run out of space are all problems that ownership
addresses. Once you understand ownership, you won’t need to think about the
stack and the heap very often, but knowing that managing heap data is why
ownership exists can help explain why it works the way it does.



### Ownership Rules

First, let’s take a look at the ownership rules. Keep these rules in mind as we
work through the examples that illustrate them:

> 1. Each value in Rust has a variable that’s called its *owner*.
> 2. There can only be one owner at a time.
> 3. When the owner goes out of scope, the value will be dropped.

### Variable Scope

We’ve walked through an example of a Rust program already in Chapter 2. Now
that we’re past basic syntax, we won’t include all the `fn main() {` code in
examples, so if you’re following along, you’ll have to put the following
examples inside a `main` function manually. As a result, our examples will be a
bit more concise, letting us focus on the actual details rather than
boilerplate code.

As a first example of ownership, we’ll look at the *scope* of some variables. A
scope is the range within a program for which an item is valid. Let’s say we
have a variable that looks like this:

```
let s = "hello";
```

The variable `s` refers to a string literal, where the value of the string is
hardcoded into the text of our program. The variable is valid from the point at
which it’s declared until the end of the current *scope*. Listing 4-1 has
comments annotating where the variable `s` is valid:

```
{                      // s is not valid here, it’s not yet declared
    let s = "hello";   // s is valid from this point forward

    // do stuff with s
}                      // this scope is now over, and s is no longer valid
```

Listing 4-1: A variable and the scope in which it is valid

In other words, there are two important points in time here:

* When `s` comes *into scope*, it is valid.
* It remains valid until it goes *out of scope*.

At this point, the relationship between scopes and when variables are valid is
similar to that in other programming languages. Now we’ll build on top of this
understanding by introducing the `String` type.

### The `String` Type

To illustrate the rules of ownership, we need a data type that is more complex
than the ones we covered in the “Data Types” section of Chapter 3. The types
covered previously are all stored on the stack and popped off the stack when
their scope is over, but we want to look at data that is stored on the heap and
explore how Rust knows when to clean up that data.

We’ll use `String` as the example here and concentrate on the parts of `String`
that relate to ownership. These aspects also apply to other complex data types
provided by the standard library and that you create. We’ll discuss `String` in
more depth in Chapter 8.

We’ve already seen string literals, where a string value is hardcoded into our
program. String literals are convenient, but they aren’t suitable for every
situation in which we may want to use text. One reason is that they’re
immutable. Another is that not every string value can be known when we write
our code: for example, what if we want to take user input and store it? For
these situations, Rust has a second string type, `String`. This type is
allocated on the heap and as such is able to store an amount of text that is
unknown to us at compile time. You can create a `String` from a string literal
using the `from` function, like so:

```
let s = String::from("hello");
```

The double colon (`::`) is an operator that allows us to namespace this
particular `from` function under the `String` type rather than using some sort
of name like `string_from`. We’ll discuss this syntax more in the “Method
Syntax” section of Chapter 5 and when we talk about namespacing with modules in
“Module Definitions” in Chapter 7.

This kind of string *can* be mutated:

```
let mut s = String::from("hello");

s.push_str(", world!"); // push_str() appends a literal to a String

println!("{}", s); // This will print `hello, world!`
```

So, what’s the difference here? Why can `String` be mutated but literals
cannot? The difference is how these two types deal with memory.

### Memory and Allocation

In the case of a string literal, we know the contents at compile time, so the
text is hardcoded directly into the final executable. This is why string
literals are fast and efficient. But these properties only come from the string
literal’s immutability. Unfortunately, we can’t put a blob of memory into the
binary for each piece of text whose size is unknown at compile time and whose
size might change while running the program.

With the `String` type, in order to support a mutable, growable piece of text,
we need to allocate an amount of memory on the heap, unknown at compile time,
to hold the contents. This means:

* The memory must be requested from the operating system at runtime.
* We need a way of returning this memory to the operating system when we’re
  done with our `String`.

That first part is done by us: when we call `String::from`, its implementation
requests the memory it needs. This is pretty much universal in programming
languages.

However, the second part is different. In languages with a *garbage collector
(GC)*, the GC keeps track and cleans up memory that isn’t being used anymore,
and we don’t need to think about it. Without a GC, it’s our responsibility to
identify when memory is no longer being used and call code to explicitly return
it, just as we did to request it. Doing this correctly has historically been a
difficult programming problem. If we forget, we’ll waste memory. If we do it
too early, we’ll have an invalid variable. If we do it twice, that’s a bug too.
We need to pair exactly one `allocate` with exactly one `free`.

Rust takes a different path: the memory is automatically returned once the
variable that owns it goes out of scope. Here’s a version of our scope example
from Listing 4-1 using a `String` instead of a string literal:

```
{
    let s = String::from("hello"); // s is valid from this point forward

    // do stuff with s
}                                  // this scope is now over, and s is no
                                   // longer valid
```

There is a natural point at which we can return the memory our `String` needs
to the operating system: when `s` goes out of scope. When a variable goes out
of scope, Rust calls a special function for us. This function is called `drop`,
and it’s where the author of `String` can put the code to return the memory.
Rust calls `drop` automatically at the closing `}`.

> Note: In C++, this pattern of deallocating resources at the end of an item’s
> lifetime is sometimes called *Resource Acquisition Is Initialization (RAII)*.
> The `drop` function in Rust will be familiar to you if you’ve used RAII
> patterns.

This pattern has a profound impact on the way Rust code is written. It may seem
simple right now, but the behavior of code can be unexpected in more
complicated situations when we want to have multiple variables use the data
we’ve allocated on the heap. Let’s explore some of those situations now.

#### Ways Variables and Data Interact: Move

Multiple variables can interact with the same data in different ways in Rust.
Let’s look at an example using an integer in Listing 4-2:

```
let x = 5;
let y = x;
```

Listing 4-2: Assigning the integer value of variable `x` to `y`

We can probably guess what this is doing: “bind the value `5` to `x`; then make
a copy of the value in `x` and bind it to `y`.” We now have two variables, `x`
and `y`, and both equal `5`. This is indeed what is happening, because integers
are simple values with a known, fixed size, and these two `5` values are pushed
onto the stack.

Now let’s look at the `String` version:

```
let s1 = String::from("hello");
let s2 = s1;
```

This looks very similar to the previous code, so we might assume that the way
it works would be the same: that is, the second line would make a copy of the
value in `s1` and bind it to `s2`. But this isn’t quite what happens.

Take a look at Figure 4-1 to see what is happening to `String` under the
covers. A `String` is made up of three parts, shown on the left: a pointer to
the memory that holds the contents of the string, a length, and a capacity.
This group of data is stored on the stack. On the right is the memory on the
heap that holds the contents.

String in memory

Figure 4-1: Representation in memory of a `String` holding the value `"hello"`
bound to `s1`

The length is how much memory, in bytes, the contents of the `String` is
currently using. The capacity is the total amount of memory, in bytes, that the
`String` has received from the operating system. The difference between length
and capacity matters, but not in this context, so for now, it’s fine to ignore
the capacity.

When we assign `s1` to `s2`, the `String` data is copied, meaning we copy the
pointer, the length, and the capacity that are on the stack. We do not copy the
data on the heap that the pointer refers to. In other words, the data
representation in memory looks like Figure 4-2.

s1 and s2 pointing to the same value

Figure 4-2: Representation in memory of the variable `s2` that has a copy of
the pointer, length, and capacity of `s1`

The representation does *not* look like Figure 4-3, which is what memory would
look like if Rust instead copied the heap data as well. If Rust did this, the
operation `s2 = s1` could be very expensive in terms of runtime performance if
the data on the heap were large.

s1 and s2 to two places

Figure 4-3: Another possibility for what `s2 = s1` might do if Rust copied the
heap data as well

Earlier, we said that when a variable goes out of scope, Rust automatically
calls the `drop` function and cleans up the heap memory for that variable. But
Figure 4-2 shows both data pointers pointing to the same location. This is a
problem: when `s2` and `s1` go out of scope, they will both try to free the
same memory. This is known as a *double free* error and is one of the memory
safety bugs we mentioned previously. Freeing memory twice can lead to memory
corruption, which can potentially lead to security vulnerabilities.

To ensure memory safety, there’s one more detail to what happens in this
situation in Rust. Instead of trying to copy the allocated memory, Rust
considers `s1` to no longer be valid and, therefore, Rust doesn’t need to free
anything when `s1` goes out of scope. Check out what happens when you try to
use `s1` after `s2` is created; it won’t work:

```
let s1 = String::from("hello");
let s2 = s1;

println!("{}, world!", s1);
```

You’ll get an error like this because Rust prevents you from using the
invalidated reference:

```
error[E0382]: use of moved value: `s1`
 --> src/main.rs:5:28
  |
3 |     let s2 = s1;
  |         -- value moved here
4 |
5 |     println!("{}, world!", s1);
  |                            ^^ value used here after move
  |
  = note: move occurs because `s1` has type `std::string::String`, which does
  not implement the `Copy` trait
```

If you’ve heard the terms *shallow copy* and *deep copy* while working with
other languages, the concept of copying the pointer, length, and capacity
without copying the data probably sounds like making a shallow copy. But
because Rust also invalidates the first variable, instead of being called a
shallow copy, it’s known as a *move*. Here we would read this by saying that
`s1` was *moved* into `s2`. So what actually happens is shown in Figure 4-4.

s1 moved to s2

Figure 4-4: Representation in memory after `s1` has been invalidated

That solves our problem! With only `s2` valid, when it goes out of scope, it
alone will free the memory, and we’re done.

In addition, there’s a design choice that’s implied by this: Rust will never
automatically create “deep” copies of your data. Therefore, any *automatic*
copying can be assumed to be inexpensive in terms of runtime performance.

#### Ways Variables and Data Interact: Clone

If we *do* want to deeply copy the heap data of the `String`, not just the
stack data, we can use a common method called `clone`. We’ll discuss method
syntax in Chapter 5, but because methods are a common feature in many
programming languages, you’ve probably seen them before.

Here’s an example of the `clone` method in action:

```
let s1 = String::from("hello");
let s2 = s1.clone();

println!("s1 = {}, s2 = {}", s1, s2);
```

This works just fine and explicitly produces the behavior shown in Figure 4-3,
where the heap data *does* get copied.

When you see a call to `clone`, you know that some arbitrary code is being
executed and that code may be expensive. It’s a visual indicator that something
different is going on.

#### Stack-Only Data: Copy

There’s another wrinkle we haven’t talked about yet. This code using integers,
part of which was shown earlier in Listing 4-2, works and is valid:

```
let x = 5;
let y = x;

println!("x = {}, y = {}", x, y);
```

But this code seems to contradict what we just learned: we don’t have a call to
`clone`, but `x` is still valid and wasn’t moved into `y`.

The reason is that types such as integers that have a known size at compile
time are stored entirely on the stack, so copies of the actual values are quick
to make. That means there’s no reason we would want to prevent `x` from being
valid after we create the variable `y`. In other words, there’s no difference
between deep and shallow copying here, so calling `clone` wouldn’t do anything
different from the usual shallow copying and we can leave it out.

Rust has a special annotation called the `Copy` trait that we can place on
types like integers that are stored on the stack (we’ll talk more about traits
in Chapter 10). If a type has the `Copy` trait, an older variable is still
usable after assignment. Rust won’t let us annotate a type with the `Copy`
trait if the type, or any of its parts, has implemented the `Drop` trait. If
the type needs something special to happen when the value goes out of scope and
we add the `Copy` annotation to that type, we’ll get a compile time error. To
learn about how to add the `Copy` annotation to your type, see “Derivable
Traits” in Appendix C.

So what types are `Copy`? You can check the documentation for the given type to
be sure, but as a general rule, any group of simple scalar values can be
`Copy`, and nothing that requires allocation or is some form of resource is
`Copy`. Here are some of the types that are `Copy`:

* All the integer types, such as `u32`.
* The Boolean type, `bool`, with values `true` and `false`.
* All the floating point types, such as `f64`.
* The character type, `char`.
* Tuples, but only if they contain types that are also `Copy`. For example,
  `(i32, i32)` is `Copy`, but `(i32, String)` is not.

### Ownership and Functions

The semantics for passing a value to a function are similar to those for
assigning a value to a variable. Passing a variable to a function will move or
copy, just as assignment does. Listing 4-3 has an example with some annotations
showing where variables go into and out of scope:

Filename: src/main.rs

```
fn main() {
    let s = String::from("hello");  // s comes into scope

    takes_ownership(s);             // s's value moves into the function...
                                    // ... and so is no longer valid here

    let x = 5;                      // x comes into scope

    makes_copy(x);                  // x would move into the function,
                                    // but i32 is Copy, so it’s okay to still
                                    // use x afterward

} // Here, x goes out of scope, then s. But because s's value was moved, nothing
  // special happens.

fn takes_ownership(some_string: String) { // some_string comes into scope
    println!("{}", some_string);
} // Here, some_string goes out of scope and `drop` is called. The backing
  // memory is freed.

fn makes_copy(some_integer: i32) { // some_integer comes into scope
    println!("{}", some_integer);
} // Here, some_integer goes out of scope. Nothing special happens.
```

Listing 4-3: Functions with ownership and scope annotated

If we tried to use `s` after the call to `takes_ownership`, Rust would throw a
compile time error. These static checks protect us from mistakes. Try adding
code to `main` that uses `s` and `x` to see where you can use them and where
the ownership rules prevent you from doing so.

### Return Values and Scope

Returning values can also transfer ownership. Listing 4-4 is an example with
similar annotations to those in Listing 4-3:

Filename: src/main.rs

```
fn main() {
    let s1 = gives_ownership();         // gives_ownership moves its return
                                        // value into s1

    let s2 = String::from("hello");     // s2 comes into scope

    let s3 = takes_and_gives_back(s2);  // s2 is moved into
                                        // takes_and_gives_back, which also
                                        // moves its return value into s3
} // Here, s3 goes out of scope and is dropped. s2 goes out of scope but was
  // moved, so nothing happens. s1 goes out of scope and is dropped.

fn gives_ownership() -> String {             // gives_ownership will move its
                                             // return value into the function
                                             // that calls it

    let some_string = String::from("hello"); // some_string comes into scope

    some_string                              // some_string is returned and
                                             // moves out to the calling
                                             // function.
}

// takes_and_gives_back will take a String and return one.
fn takes_and_gives_back(a_string: String) -> String { // a_string comes into
                                                      // scope

    a_string  // a_string is returned and moves out to the calling function
}
```

Listing 4-4: Transferring ownership of return values

The ownership of a variable follows the same pattern every time: assigning a
value to another variable moves it. When a variable that includes data on the
heap goes out of scope, the value will be cleaned up by `drop` unless the data
has been moved to be owned by another variable.

Taking ownership and then returning ownership with every function is a bit
tedious. What if we want to let a function use a value but not take ownership?
It’s quite annoying that anything we pass in also needs to be passed back if we
want to use it again, in addition to any data resulting from the body of the
function that we might want to return as well.

It’s possible to return multiple values using a tuple, as shown in Listing 4-5:

Filename: src/main.rs

```
fn main() {
    let s1 = String::from("hello");

    let (s2, len) = calculate_length(s1);

    println!("The length of '{}' is {}.", s2, len);
}

fn calculate_length(s: String) -> (String, usize) {
    let length = s.len(); // len() returns the length of a String

    (s, length)
}
```

Listing 4-5: Returning ownership of parameters

But this is too much ceremony and a lot of work for a concept that should be
common. Luckily for us, Rust has a feature for this concept, called
*references*.

## References and Borrowing

The issue with the tuple code in Listing 4-5 is that we have to return the
`String` to the calling function so we can still use the `String` after the
call to `calculate_length`, because the `String` was moved into
`calculate_length`.

Here is how you would define and use a `calculate_length` function that has a
reference to an object as a parameter instead of taking ownership of the
value:

Filename: src/main.rs

```
fn main() {
    let s1 = String::from("hello");

    let len = calculate_length(&s1);

    println!("The length of '{}' is {}.", s1, len);
}

fn calculate_length(s: &String) -> usize {
    s.len()
}
```

First, notice that all the tuple code in the variable declaration and the
function return value is gone. Second, note that we pass `&s1` into
`calculate_length` and, in its definition, we take `&String` rather than
`String`.

These ampersands are *references*, and they allow you to refer to some value
without taking ownership of it. Figure 4-5 shows a diagram.

&String s pointing at String s1

Figure 4-5: A diagram of `&String s` pointing at `String s1`

> Note: The opposite of referencing by using `&` is *dereferencing*, which is
> accomplished with the dereference operator, `*`. We’ll see some uses of the
> dereference operator in Chapter 8 and discuss details of dereferencing in
> Chapter 15.

Let’s take a closer look at the function call here:

```
let s1 = String::from("hello");

let len = calculate_length(&s1);
```

The `&s1` syntax lets us create a reference that *refers* to the value of `s1`
but does not own it. Because it does not own it, the value it points to will
not be dropped when the reference goes out of scope.

Likewise, the signature of the function uses `&` to indicate that the type of
the parameter `s` is a reference. Let’s add some explanatory annotations:

```
fn calculate_length(s: &String) -> usize { // s is a reference to a String
    s.len()
} // Here, s goes out of scope. But because it does not have ownership of what
  // it refers to, nothing happens.
```

The scope in which the variable `s` is valid is the same as any function
parameter’s scope, but we don’t drop what the reference points to when it goes
out of scope because we don’t have ownership. When functions have references as
parameters instead of the actual values, we won’t need to return the values in
order to give back ownership, because we never had ownership.

We call having references as function parameters *borrowing*. As in real life,
if a person owns something, you can borrow it from them. When you’re done, you
have to give it back.

So what happens if we try to modify something we’re borrowing? Try the code in
Listing 4-6. Spoiler alert: it doesn’t work!

Filename: src/main.rs

```
fn main() {
    let s = String::from("hello");

    change(&s);
}

fn change(some_string: &String) {
    some_string.push_str(", world");
}
```

Listing 4-6: Attempting to modify a borrowed value

Here’s the error:

```
error[E0596]: cannot borrow immutable borrowed content `*some_string` as mutable
 --> error.rs:8:5
  |
7 | fn change(some_string: &String) {
  |                        ------- use `&mut String` here to make mutable
8 |     some_string.push_str(", world");
  |     ^^^^^^^^^^^ cannot borrow as mutable
```

Just as variables are immutable by default, so are references. We’re not
allowed to modify something we have a reference to.

### Mutable References

We can fix the error in the code from Listing 4-6 with just a small tweak:

Filename: src/main.rs

```
fn main() {
    let mut s = String::from("hello");

    change(&mut s);
}

fn change(some_string: &mut String) {
    some_string.push_str(", world");
}
```

First, we had to change `s` to be `mut`. Then we had to create a mutable
reference with `&mut s` and accept a mutable reference with `some_string: &mut
String`.

But mutable references have one big restriction: you can only have one mutable
reference to a particular piece of data in a particular scope. This code will
fail:

Filename: src/main.rs

```
let mut s = String::from("hello");

let r1 = &mut s;
let r2 = &mut s;
```

Here’s the error:

```
error[E0499]: cannot borrow `s` as mutable more than once at a time
 --> borrow_twice.rs:5:19
  |
4 |     let r1 = &mut s;
  |                   - first mutable borrow occurs here
5 |     let r2 = &mut s;
  |                   ^ second mutable borrow occurs here
6 | }
  | - first borrow ends here
```

This restriction allows for mutation but in a very controlled fashion. It’s
something that new Rustaceans struggle with, because most languages let you
mutate whenever you’d like.

The benefit of having this restriction is that Rust can prevent data races at
compile time. A *data race* is similar to a race condition and happens when
these three behaviors occur:

* Two or more pointers access the same data at the same time.
* At least one of the pointers is being used to write to the data.
* There’s no mechanism being used to synchronize access to the data.

Data races cause undefined behavior and can be difficult to diagnose and fix
when you’re trying to track them down at runtime; Rust prevents this problem
from happening because it won’t even compile code with data races!

As always, we can use curly brackets to create a new scope, allowing for
multiple mutable references, just not *simultaneous* ones:

```
let mut s = String::from("hello");

{
    let r1 = &mut s;

} // r1 goes out of scope here, so we can make a new reference with no problems.

let r2 = &mut s;
```

A similar rule exists for combining mutable and immutable references. This code
results in an error:

```
let mut s = String::from("hello");

let r1 = &s; // no problem
let r2 = &s; // no problem
let r3 = &mut s; // BIG PROBLEM
```

Here’s the error:

```
error[E0502]: cannot borrow `s` as mutable because it is also borrowed as
immutable
 --> borrow_thrice.rs:6:19
  |
4 |     let r1 = &s; // no problem
  |               - immutable borrow occurs here
5 |     let r2 = &s; // no problem
6 |     let r3 = &mut s; // BIG PROBLEM
  |                   ^ mutable borrow occurs here
7 | }
  | - immutable borrow ends here
```

Whew! We *also* cannot have a mutable reference while we have an immutable one.
Users of an immutable reference don’t expect the values to suddenly change out
from under them! However, multiple immutable references are okay because no one
who is just reading the data has the ability to affect anyone else’s reading of
the data.

Even though these errors may be frustrating at times, remember that it’s the
Rust compiler pointing out a potential bug early (at compile time rather than
at runtime) and showing you exactly where the problem is. Then you don’t have
to track down why your data isn’t what you thought it was.

### Dangling References

In languages with pointers, it’s easy to erroneously create a *dangling
pointer*, a pointer that references a location in memory that may have been
given to someone else, by freeing some memory while preserving a pointer to
that memory. In Rust, by contrast, the compiler guarantees that references will
never be dangling references: if you have a reference to some data, the
compiler will ensure that the data will not go out of scope before the
reference to the data does.

Let’s try to create a dangling reference, which Rust will prevent with a
compile-time error:

Filename: src/main.rs

```
fn main() {
    let reference_to_nothing = dangle();
}

fn dangle() -> &String {
    let s = String::from("hello");

    &s
}
```

Here’s the error:

```
error[E0106]: missing lifetime specifier
 --> dangle.rs:5:16
  |
5 | fn dangle() -> &String {
  |                ^ expected lifetime parameter
  |
  = help: this function's return type contains a borrowed value, but there is
  no value for it to be borrowed from
  = help: consider giving it a 'static lifetime
```

This error message refers to a feature we haven’t covered yet: *lifetimes*.
We’ll discuss lifetimes in detail in Chapter 10. But, if you disregard the
parts about lifetimes, the message does contain the key to why this code is a
problem:

```
this function's return type contains a borrowed value, but there is no value
for it to be borrowed from.
```

Let’s take a closer look at exactly what’s happening at each stage of our
`dangle` code:

```
fn dangle() -> &String { // dangle returns a reference to a String

    let s = String::from("hello"); // s is a new String

    &s // we return a reference to the String, s
} // Here, s goes out of scope, and is dropped. Its memory goes away.
  // Danger!
```

Because `s` is created inside `dangle`, when the code of `dangle` is finished,
`s` will be deallocated. But we tried to return a reference to it. That means
this reference would be pointing to an invalid `String` That’s no good! Rust
won’t let us do this.

The solution here is to return the `String` directly:

```
fn no_dangle() -> String {
    let s = String::from("hello");

    s
}
```

This works without any problems. Ownership is moved out, and nothing is
deallocated.

### The Rules of References

Let’s recap what we’ve discussed about references:

* At any given time, you can have *either* (but not both of) one mutable
  reference or any number of immutable references.
* References must always be valid.

Next, we’ll look at a different kind of reference: slices.

## The Slice Type

Another data type that does not have ownership is the *slice*. Slices let you
reference a contiguous sequence of elements in a collection rather than the
whole collection.

Here’s a small programming problem: write a function that takes a string and
returns the first word it finds in that string. If the function doesn’t find a
space in the string, the whole string must be one word, so the entire string
should be returned.

Let’s think about the signature of this function:

```
fn first_word(s: &String) -> ?
```

This function, `first_word`, has a `&String` as a parameter. We don’t want
ownership, so this is fine. But what should we return? We don’t really have a
way to talk about *part* of a string. However, we could return the index of the
end of the word. Let’s try that, as shown in Listing 4-7:

Filename: src/main.rs

```
fn first_word(s: &String) -> usize {
    let bytes = s.as_bytes();

    for (i, &item) in bytes.iter().enumerate() {
        if item == b' ' {
            return i;
        }
    }

    s.len()
}
```

Listing 4-7: The `first_word` function that returns a byte index value into the
`String` parameter

Because we need to go through the `String` element by element and check whether
a value is a space, we’ll convert our `String` to an array of bytes using the
`as_bytes` method:

```
let bytes = s.as_bytes();
```

Next, we create an iterator over the array of bytes using the `iter` method:

```
for (i, &item) in bytes.iter().enumerate() {
```

We’ll discuss iterators in more detail in Chapter 13. For now, know that `iter`
is a method that returns each element in a collection and that `enumerate`
wraps the result of `iter` and returns each element as part of a tuple instead.
The first element of the tuple returned from `enumerate` is the index, and the
second element is a reference to the element. This is a bit more convenient
than calculating the index ourselves.

Because the `enumerate` method returns a tuple, we can use patterns to
destructure that tuple, just like everywhere else in Rust. So in the `for`
loop, we specify a pattern that has `i` for the index in the tuple and `&item`
for the single byte in the tuple. Because we get a reference to the element
from `.iter().enumerate()`, we use `&` in the pattern.

Inside the `for` loop, we search for the byte that represents the space by
using the byte literal syntax. If we find a space, we return the position.
Otherwise, we return the length of the string by using `s.len()`:

```
    if item == b' ' {
        return i;
    }
}
s.len()
```

We now have a way to find out the index of the end of the first word in the
string, but there’s a problem. We’re returning a `usize` on its own, but it’s
only a meaningful number in the context of the `&String`. In other words,
because it’s a separate value from the `String`, there’s no guarantee that it
will still be valid in the future. Consider the program in Listing 4-8 that
uses the `first_word` function from Listing 4-7:

Filename: src/main.rs

```
fn main() {
    let mut s = String::from("hello world");

    let word = first_word(&s); // word will get the value 5

    s.clear(); // This empties the String, making it equal to ""

    // word still has the value 5 here, but there's no more string that
    // we could meaningfully use the value 5 with. word is now totally invalid!
}
```

Listing 4-8: Storing the result from calling the `first_word` function and then
changing the `String` contents

This program compiles without any errors and would also do so if we used `word`
after calling `s.clear()`. Because `word` isn’t connected to the state of `s`
at all, `word` still contains the value `5`. We could use that value `5` with
the variable `s` to try to extract the first word out, but this would be a bug
because the contents of `s` have changed since we saved `5` in `word`.

Having to worry about the index in `word` getting out of sync with the data in
`s` is tedious and error prone! Managing these indices is even more brittle if
we write a `second_word` function. Its signature would have to look like this:

```
fn second_word(s: &String) -> (usize, usize) {
```

Now we’re tracking a starting *and* an ending index, and we have even more
values that were calculated from data in a particular state but aren’t tied to
that state at all. We now have three unrelated variables floating around that
need to be kept in sync.

Luckily, Rust has a solution to this problem: string slices.

### String Slices

A *string slice* is a reference to part of a `String`, and it looks like this:

```
let s = String::from("hello world");

let hello = &s[0..5];
let world = &s[6..11];
```

This is similar to taking a reference to the whole `String` but with the extra
`[0..5]` bit. Rather than a reference to the entire `String`, it’s a reference
to a portion of the `String`. The `start..end` syntax is a range that begins at
`start` and continues up to, but not including, `end`.

We can create slices using a range within brackets by specifying
`[starting_index..ending_index]`, where `starting_index` is the first position
in the slice and `ending_index` is one more than the last position in the
slice. Internally, the slice data structure stores the starting position and
the length of the slice, which corresponds to `ending_index` minus
`starting_index`. So in the case of `let world = &s[6..11];`, `world` would be
a slice that contains a pointer to the 6th byte of `s` and a length value of 5.

Figure 4-6 shows this in a diagram.

world containing a pointer to the 6th byte of String s and a length 5

Figure 4-6: String slice referring to part of a `String`

With Rust’s `..` range syntax, if you want to start at the first index (zero),
you can drop the value before the two periods. In other words, these are equal:

```
let s = String::from("hello");

let slice = &s[0..2];
let slice = &s[..2];
```

By the same token, if your slice includes the last byte of the `String`, you
can drop the trailing number. That means these are equal:

```
let s = String::from("hello");

let len = s.len();

let slice = &s[3..len];
let slice = &s[3..];
```

You can also drop both values to take a slice of the entire string. So these
are equal:

```
let s = String::from("hello");

let len = s.len();

let slice = &s[0..len];
let slice = &s[..];
```

> Note: String slice range indices must occur at valid UTF-8 character
> boundaries. If you attempt to create a string slice in the middle of a
> multibyte character, your program will exit with an error. For the purposes
> of introducing string slices, we are assuming ASCII only in this section; a
> more thorough discussion of UTF-8 handling is in the “Strings” section of
> Chapter 8.

With all this information in mind, let’s rewrite `first_word` to return a
slice. The type that signifies “string slice” is written as `&str`:

Filename: src/main.rs

```
fn first_word(s: &String) -> &str {
    let bytes = s.as_bytes();

    for (i, &item) in bytes.iter().enumerate() {
        if item == b' ' {
            return &s[0..i];
        }
    }

    &s[..]
}
```

We get the index for the end of the word in the same way as we did in Listing
4-7, by looking for the first occurrence of a space. When we find a space, we
return a string slice using the start of the string and the index of the space
as the starting and ending indices.

Now when we call `first_word`, we get back a single value that is tied to the
underlying data. The value is made up of a reference to the starting point of
the slice and the number of elements in the slice.

Returning a slice would also work for a `second_word` function:

```
fn second_word(s: &String) -> &str {
```

We now have a straightforward API that’s much harder to mess up, because the
compiler will ensure the references into the `String` remain valid. Remember
the bug in the program in Listing 4-8, when we got the index to the end of the
first word but then cleared the string so our index was invalid? That code was
logically incorrect but didn’t show any immediate errors. The problems would
show up later if we kept trying to use the first word index with an emptied
string. Slices make this bug impossible and let us know we have a problem with
our code much sooner. Using the slice version of `first_word` will throw a
compile time error:

Filename: src/main.rs

```
fn main() {
    let mut s = String::from("hello world");

    let word = first_word(&s);

    s.clear(); // Error!
}
```

Here’s the compiler error:

```
error[E0502]: cannot borrow `s` as mutable because it is also borrowed as immutable
 --> src/main.rs:6:5
  |
4 |     let word = first_word(&s);
  |                            - immutable borrow occurs here
5 |
6 |     s.clear(); // Error!
  |     ^ mutable borrow occurs here
7 | }
  | - immutable borrow ends here
```

Recall from the borrowing rules that if we have an immutable reference to
something, we cannot also take a mutable reference. Because `clear` needs to
truncate the `String`, it tries to take a mutable reference, which fails. Not
only has Rust made our API easier to use, but it has also eliminated an entire
class of errors at compile time!

#### String Literals Are Slices

Recall that we talked about string literals being stored inside the binary. Now
that we know about slices, we can properly understand string literals:

```
let s = "Hello, world!";
```

The type of `s` here is `&str`: it’s a slice pointing to that specific point of
the binary. This is also why string literals are immutable; `&str` is an
immutable reference.

#### String Slices as Parameters

Knowing that you can take slices of literals and `String`s leads us to one more
improvement on `first_word`, and that’s its signature:

```
fn first_word(s: &String) -> &str {
```

A more experienced Rustacean would write the following line instead because it
allows us to use the same function on both `String`s and `&str`s:

```
fn first_word(s: &str) -> &str {
```

If we have a string slice, we can pass that directly. If we have a `String`, we
can pass a slice of the entire `String`. Defining a function to take a string
slice instead of a reference to a `String` makes our API more general and useful
without losing any functionality:

Filename: src/main.rs

```
fn main() {
    let my_string = String::from("hello world");

    // first_word works on slices of `String`s
    let word = first_word(&my_string[..]);

    let my_string_literal = "hello world";

    // first_word works on slices of string literals
    let word = first_word(&my_string_literal[..]);

    // Because string literals *are* string slices already,
    // this works too, without the slice syntax!
    let word = first_word(my_string_literal);
}
```

### Other Slices

String slices, as you might imagine, are specific to strings. But there’s a
more general slice type, too. Consider this array:

```
let a = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5];
```

Just as we might want to refer to a part of a string, we might want to refer
to part of an array. We’d do so like this:

```
let a = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5];

let slice = &a[1..3];
```

This slice has the type `&[i32]`. It works the same way as string slices do, by
storing a reference to the first element and a length. You’ll use this kind of
slice for all sorts of other collections. We’ll discuss these collections in
detail when we talk about vectors in Chapter 8.

## Summary

The concepts of ownership, borrowing, and slices ensure memory safety in Rust
programs at compile time. The Rust language gives you control over your memory
usage in the same way as other systems programming languages, but having the
owner of data automatically clean up that data when the owner goes out of scope
means you don’t have to write and debug extra code to get this control.

Ownership affects how lots of other parts of Rust work, so we’ll talk about
these concepts further throughout the rest of the book. Let’s move on to
Chapter 5 and look at grouping pieces of data together in a `struct`.
