type-handle

Tiny Rust library that exports Handle<T> and RCHandle<T>. Can be useful for wrapping native ffi structs/pointers.

Both Handle and RCHandle implement Clone, where Handle will clone the underlying struct instance (if it implements Clone), and RCHandle will keep the underlying pointer.

Handle and RCHandle implement Send/Sync by default with the send_sync feature.

They both implement Deref and DerefMut, so you can access a field through a handle the same as you normally would on a normal instance.

Example

Handle<T>

#[derive(Clone)]
struct Animal {
    is_dog: bool,
}

let animal = Animal { is_dog: false };
let cat = Handle::from_instance(animal);

// clone `cat` and mutate `is_dog`, note that `animal` is not mutable
let dog = handle.clone(); // this clones `Animal`, `Animal` must implement `Clone`
dog.is_dog = true;

RCHandle<T> (reference-counted handle)

// don't have to #[derive(Clone)] here!
struct Animal {
    is_dog: bool,
}

let mut animal = Animal { is_dog: false };
let mut handle = RCHandle::from_ptr(&mut animal);

// note that `Animal` does not implement `Clone`, because 
// cloning an `RCHandle` does not clone the underlying type
let mut handle2 = handle.clone();

handle2.is_dog = true;
assert!(handle.is_dog == handle2.is_dog);

Tests

To run tests, run cargo test.

License

Public domain (unlicense).