[Solved] Is 'static okay?

help
1

I have a struct that contains Cow:

struct Subject<'a> {
    inner: Cow<'a, str>
}

If a method returns an Owned variant, is it okay to specify the 'static lifetime? Or, more specifically, will the instance not live to the end of time?

pub fn from_string(s: String) -> Result<Subject<'static>, SubjectError> {
    Ok(Subject { inner: Cow::Owned(s) })
}

Full code here (Rust Playground).

2

Yes. An owned Cow doesn't depend on any other data, so it can be kept alive as long as the caller wants.

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3

Variance should also allow someone to take that Subject<'static> and use it as any Subject<'a> they want.

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4

Note that Box::leak returns a &mut 'a T, not a &mut 'static T, so it's possible it should be

pub fn from_string(s: String) -> Result<Subject<'a>, SubjectError>

(I don't really know what the implications are for it.)

1 Like
5

I don't know why Box::leak needs to do that -- according to the nomicon on Variance, "&'a mut T is covariant over 'a but invariant over T", so I'd expect it could have just returned &'static mut T. I suppose that signature does let you call Box::leak::<'a>(b) without otherwise casting or coercing the lifetime.

edit: Oh, because it also requires T: 'a to make a legal reference, so it's more flexible this way than requiring T: 'static. This isn't an issue for the Subject given here, but could be something to consider if it had other generic parameters.

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6

Aha! Silly thing, somehow I haven't even tried this variant.