Rust Smart Pointers
Choose between Box, Rc, and Arc smart pointers based on ownership and thread-safety needs.
Rust uses smart pointers to manage heap allocation, reference counting, and thread safety. Choosing the correct pointer keeps compilation errors at bay and optimizes execution runtime.
Here is a quick reference for Rust’s common smart pointers:
// Box<T> - Single owner, heap-allocated data with size known at compile-time
let heap_data = Box::new(5);
// Rc<T> - Multiple owners on a single thread (not thread-safe)
let shared_data = Rc::new(String::from("hello"));
// Arc<T> - Thread-safe reference counting for multi-threaded sharing
let safe_shared_data = Arc::new(vec![1, 2, 3]);Use Rc<T> and Arc<T> with RefCell<T> or Mutex<T> respectively when interior mutability is required.