What does private trait Sealed used for?

[tguichaoua]

Sometime when I'm reading code from crate I encounter this pattern :

mod private {
    pub trait Sealed {  }
}

pub trait SomeTrait: private::Sealed {
    // ...
}

What does it used for ?

[2e71828]

It makes it impossible for other crates to implement SomeTrait for their own types, as they can never satisfy the prerequisite private::Sealed.

It's not recommended unless soundness concerns require the crate that defines SomeTrait to know all implementing types. Usually, it's better to declare SomeTrait as unsafe to implement:

/// Safety: All valid implementations must ensure that ...
pub unsafe trait SomeTrait {
    // ...
}