Is it possible to transfer &[u8] to another thread without copying?

1

Hi, I have a variable of type &[u8] that get from Rust binding to a C library:

fn on_paint(&mut self, buffer: &[u8], width: usize, height: usize) {
    // Here I pass buffer to another thread using std::sync:mpsc
}

I need to send this buffer to another thread. Currently, I use std::sync::mpsc but I have to make a copy of it let buffer = buffer.to_vec(). Is it possible to send it without copying?

2

Where does the other thread come from? If you spawn it in on_paint via thread::spawn, you could use thread::scope instead, which allows capturing non-'static data. Otherwise I don't see a way around copying the buffer, either by message-passing the copy to the other thread (as you currently do) or by sharing the buffer in memory via Arc<[u8]> or such. Thread execution order isn't deterministic, so the thread that owns the buffer might deallocate it, making the reference the other thread has to the buffer dangle.

3

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