aboutsummaryrefslogtreecommitdiff
path: root/doc/HACKING/CodingStandardsRust.md
diff options
context:
space:
mode:
Diffstat (limited to 'doc/HACKING/CodingStandardsRust.md')
-rw-r--r--doc/HACKING/CodingStandardsRust.md509
1 files changed, 509 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/doc/HACKING/CodingStandardsRust.md b/doc/HACKING/CodingStandardsRust.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..7c6405e624
--- /dev/null
+++ b/doc/HACKING/CodingStandardsRust.md
@@ -0,0 +1,509 @@
+
+ Rust Coding Standards
+=======================
+
+You MUST follow the standards laid out in `.../doc/HACKING/CodingStandards.md`,
+where applicable.
+
+ Module/Crate Declarations
+---------------------------
+
+Each Tor C module which is being rewritten MUST be in its own crate.
+See the structure of `.../src/rust` for examples.
+
+In your crate, you MUST use `lib.rs` ONLY for pulling in external
+crates (e.g. `extern crate libc;`) and exporting public objects from
+other Rust modules (e.g. `pub use mymodule::foo;`). For example, if
+you create a crate in `.../src/rust/yourcrate`, your Rust code should
+live in `.../src/rust/yourcrate/yourcode.rs` and the public interface
+to it should be exported in `.../src/rust/yourcrate/lib.rs`.
+
+If your code is to be called from Tor C code, you MUST define a safe
+`ffi.rs`. See the "Safety" section further down for more details.
+
+For example, in a hypothetical `tor_addition` Rust module:
+
+In `.../src/rust/tor_addition/addition.rs`:
+
+ pub fn get_sum(a: i32, b: i32) -> i32 {
+ a + b
+ }
+
+In `.../src/rust/tor_addition/lib.rs`:
+
+ pub use addition::*;
+
+In `.../src/rust/tor_addition/ffi.rs`:
+
+ #[no_mangle]
+ pub extern "C" fn tor_get_sum(a: c_int, b: c_int) -> c_int {
+ get_sum(a, b)
+ }
+
+If your Rust code must call out to parts of Tor's C code, you must
+declare the functions you are calling in the `external` crate, located
+at `.../src/rust/external`.
+
+<!-- XXX get better examples of how to declare these externs, when/how they -->
+<!-- XXX are unsafe, what they are expected to do —isis -->
+
+Modules should strive to be below 500 lines (tests excluded). Single
+responsibility and limited dependencies should be a guiding standard.
+
+If you have any external modules as dependencies (e.g. `extern crate
+libc;`), you MUST declare them in your crate's `lib.rs` and NOT in any
+other module.
+
+ Dependencies and versions
+---------------------------
+
+In general, we use modules from only the Rust standard library
+whenever possible. We will review including external crates on a
+case-by-case basis.
+
+If a crate only contains traits meant for compatibility between Rust
+crates, such as [the digest crate](https://crates.io/crates/digest) or
+[the failure crate](https://crates.io/crates/failure), it is very likely
+permissible to add it as a dependency. However, a brief review should
+be conducted as to the usefulness of implementing external traits
+(i.e. how widespread is the usage, how many other crates either
+implement the traits or have trait bounds based upon them), as well as
+the stability of the traits (i.e. if the trait is going to change, we'll
+potentially have to re-do all our implementations of it).
+
+For large external libraries, especially which implement features which
+would be labour-intensive to reproduce/maintain ourselves, such as
+cryptographic or mathematical/statistics libraries, only crates which
+have stabilised to 1.0.0 should be considered, however, again, we may
+make exceptions on a case-by-case basis.
+
+Currently, Tor requires that you use the latest stable Rust version. At
+some point in the future, we will freeze on a given stable Rust version,
+to ensure backward compatibility with stable distributions that ship it.
+
+ Updating/Adding Dependencies
+------------------------------
+
+To add/remove/update dependencies, first add your dependencies,
+exactly specifying their versions, into the appropriate *crate-level*
+`Cargo.toml` in `src/rust/` (i.e. *not* `/src/rust/Cargo.toml`, but
+instead the one for your crate). Also, investigate whether your
+dependency has any optional dependencies which are unnecessary but are
+enabled by default. If so, you'll likely be able to enable/disable
+them via some feature, e.g.:
+
+```toml
+[dependencies]
+foo = { version = "1.0.0", default-features = false }
+```
+
+Next, run `/scripts/maint/updateRustDependencies.sh`. Then, go into
+`src/ext/rust` and commit the changes to the `tor-rust-dependencies`
+repo.
+
+ Documentation
+---------------
+
+You MUST include `#[deny(missing_docs)]` in your crate.
+
+For function/method comments, you SHOULD include a one-sentence, "first person"
+description of function behaviour (see requirements for documentation as
+described in `.../src/HACKING/CodingStandards.md`), then an `# Inputs` section
+for inputs or initialisation values, a `# Returns` section for return
+values/types, a `# Warning` section containing warnings for unsafe behaviours or
+panics that could happen. For publicly accessible
+types/constants/objects/functions/methods, you SHOULD also include an
+`# Examples` section with runnable doctests.
+
+You MUST document your module with _module docstring_ comments,
+i.e. `//!` at the beginning of each line.
+
+ Style
+-------
+
+You SHOULD consider breaking up large literal numbers with `_` when it makes it
+more human readable to do so, e.g. `let x: u64 = 100_000_000_000`.
+
+ Testing
+---------
+
+All code MUST be unittested and integration tested.
+
+Public functions/objects exported from a crate SHOULD include doctests
+describing how the function/object is expected to be used.
+
+Integration tests SHOULD go into a `tests/` directory inside your
+crate. Unittests SHOULD go into their own module inside the module
+they are testing, e.g. in `.../src/rust/tor_addition/addition.rs` you
+should put:
+
+ #[cfg(test)]
+ mod test {
+ use super::*;
+
+ #[test]
+ fn addition_with_zero() {
+ let sum: i32 = get_sum(5i32, 0i32);
+ assert_eq!(sum, 5);
+ }
+ }
+
+ Benchmarking
+--------------
+
+The external `test` crate can be used for most benchmarking. However, using
+this crate requires nightly Rust. Since we may want to switch to a more
+stable Rust compiler eventually, we shouldn't do things which will automatically
+break builds for stable compilers. Therefore, you MUST feature-gate your
+benchmarks in the following manner.
+
+If you wish to benchmark some of your Rust code, you MUST put the
+following in the `[features]` section of your crate's `Cargo.toml`:
+
+ [features]
+ bench = []
+
+Next, in your crate's `lib.rs` you MUST put:
+
+ #[cfg(all(test, feature = "bench"))]
+ extern crate test;
+
+This ensures that the external crate `test`, which contains utilities
+for basic benchmarks, is only used when running benchmarks via `cargo
+bench --features bench`.
+
+Finally, to write your benchmark code, in
+`.../src/rust/tor_addition/addition.rs` you SHOULD put:
+
+ #[cfg(all(test, features = "bench"))]
+ mod bench {
+ use test::Bencher;
+ use super::*;
+
+ #[bench]
+ fn addition_small_integers(b: &mut Bencher) {
+ b.iter(| | get_sum(5i32, 0i32));
+ }
+ }
+
+ Fuzzing
+---------
+
+If you wish to fuzz parts of your code, please see the
+[`cargo fuzz`](https://github.com/rust-fuzz/cargo-fuzz) crate, which uses
+[libfuzzer-sys](https://github.com/rust-fuzz/libfuzzer-sys).
+
+ Whitespace & Formatting
+-------------------------
+
+You MUST run `rustfmt` (https://github.com/rust-lang-nursery/rustfmt)
+on your code before your code will be merged. You can install rustfmt
+by doing `cargo install rustfmt-nightly` and then run it with `cargo
+fmt`.
+
+ Safety
+--------
+
+You SHOULD read [the nomicon](https://doc.rust-lang.org/nomicon/) before writing
+Rust FFI code. It is *highly advised* that you read and write normal Rust code
+before attempting to write FFI or any other unsafe code.
+
+Here are some additional bits of advice and rules:
+
+0. Any behaviours which Rust considers to be undefined are forbidden
+
+ From https://doc.rust-lang.org/reference/behavior-considered-undefined.html:
+
+ > Behavior considered undefined
+ >
+ > The following is a list of behavior which is forbidden in all Rust code,
+ > including within unsafe blocks and unsafe functions. Type checking provides the
+ > guarantee that these issues are never caused by safe code.
+ >
+ > * Data races
+ > * Dereferencing a null/dangling raw pointer
+ > * Reads of [undef](http://llvm.org/docs/LangRef.html#undefined-values)
+ > (uninitialized) memory
+ > * Breaking the
+ > [pointer aliasing rules](http://llvm.org/docs/LangRef.html#pointer-aliasing-rules)
+ > with raw pointers (a subset of the rules used by C)
+ > * `&mut T` and `&T` follow LLVM’s scoped noalias model, except if the `&T`
+ > contains an `UnsafeCell<U>`. Unsafe code must not violate these aliasing
+ > guarantees.
+ > * Mutating non-mutable data (that is, data reached through a shared
+ > reference or data owned by a `let` binding), unless that data is
+ > contained within an `UnsafeCell<U>`.
+ > * Invoking undefined behavior via compiler intrinsics:
+ > - Indexing outside of the bounds of an object with
+ > `std::ptr::offset` (`offset` intrinsic), with the exception of
+ > one byte past the end which is permitted.
+ > - Using `std::ptr::copy_nonoverlapping_memory` (`memcpy32`/`memcpy64`
+ > intrinsics) on overlapping buffers
+ > * Invalid values in primitive types, even in private fields/locals:
+ > - Dangling/null references or boxes
+ > - A value other than `false` (0) or `true` (1) in a `bool`
+ > - A discriminant in an `enum` not included in the type definition
+ > - A value in a `char` which is a surrogate or above `char::MAX`
+ > - Non-UTF-8 byte sequences in a `str`
+ > * Unwinding into Rust from foreign code or unwinding from Rust into foreign
+ > code. Rust's failure system is not compatible with exception handling in other
+ > languages. Unwinding must be caught and handled at FFI boundaries.
+
+1. `unwrap()`
+
+ If you call `unwrap()`, anywhere, even in a test, you MUST include
+ an inline comment stating how the unwrap will either 1) never fail,
+ or 2) should fail (i.e. in a unittest).
+
+ You SHOULD NOT use `unwrap()` anywhere in which it is possible to handle the
+ potential error with either `expect()` or the eel operator, `?`.
+ For example, consider a function which parses a string into an integer:
+
+ fn parse_port_number(config_string: &str) -> u16 {
+ u16::from_str_radix(config_string, 10).unwrap()
+ }
+
+ There are numerous ways this can fail, and the `unwrap()` will cause the
+ whole program to byte the dust! Instead, either you SHOULD use `expect()`
+ (or another equivalent function which will return an `Option` or a `Result`)
+ and change the return type to be compatible:
+
+ fn parse_port_number(config_string: &str) -> Option<u16> {
+ u16::from_str_radix(config_string, 10).expect("Couldn't parse port into a u16")
+ }
+
+ or you SHOULD use `or()` (or another similar method):
+
+ fn parse_port_number(config_string: &str) -> Option<u16> {
+ u16::from_str_radix(config_string, 10).or(Err("Couldn't parse port into a u16")
+ }
+
+ Using methods like `or()` can be particularly handy when you must do
+ something afterwards with the data, for example, if we wanted to guarantee
+ that the port is high. Combining these methods with the eel operator (`?`)
+ makes this even easier:
+
+ fn parse_port_number(config_string: &str) -> Result<u16, Err> {
+ let port = u16::from_str_radix(config_string, 10).or(Err("Couldn't parse port into a u16"))?;
+
+ if port > 1024 {
+ return Ok(port);
+ } else {
+ return Err("Low ports not allowed");
+ }
+ }
+
+2. `unsafe`
+
+ If you use `unsafe`, you MUST describe a contract in your
+ documentation which describes how and when the unsafe code may
+ fail, and what expectations are made w.r.t. the interfaces to
+ unsafe code. This is also REQUIRED for major pieces of FFI between
+ C and Rust.
+
+ When creating an FFI in Rust for C code to call, it is NOT REQUIRED
+ to declare the entire function `unsafe`. For example, rather than doing:
+
+ #[no_mangle]
+ pub unsafe extern "C" fn increment_and_combine_numbers(mut numbers: [u8; 4]) -> u32 {
+ for number in &mut numbers {
+ *number += 1;
+ }
+ std::mem::transmute::<[u8; 4], u32>(numbers)
+ }
+
+ You SHOULD instead do:
+
+ #[no_mangle]
+ pub extern "C" fn increment_and_combine_numbers(mut numbers: [u8; 4]) -> u32 {
+ for index in 0..numbers.len() {
+ numbers[index] += 1;
+ }
+ unsafe {
+ std::mem::transmute::<[u8; 4], u32>(numbers)
+ }
+ }
+
+3. Pass only integer types and bytes over the boundary
+
+ The only non-integer type which may cross the FFI boundary is
+ bytes, e.g. `&[u8]`. This SHOULD be done on the Rust side by
+ passing a pointer (`*mut libc::c_char`) and a length
+ (`libc::size_t`).
+
+ One might be tempted to do this via doing
+ `CString::new("blah").unwrap().into_raw()`. This has several problems:
+
+ a) If you do `CString::new("bl\x00ah")` then the unwrap() will fail
+ due to the additional NULL terminator, causing a dangling
+ pointer to be returned (as well as a potential use-after-free).
+
+ b) Returning the raw pointer will cause the CString to run its deallocator,
+ which causes any C code which tries to access the contents to dereference a
+ NULL pointer.
+
+ c) If we were to do `as_raw()` this would result in a potential double-free
+ since the Rust deallocator would run and possibly Tor's deallocator.
+
+ d) Calling `into_raw()` without later using the same pointer in Rust to call
+ `from_raw()` and then deallocate in Rust can result in a
+ [memory leak](https://doc.rust-lang.org/std/ffi/struct.CString.html#method.into_raw).
+
+ [It was determined](https://github.com/rust-lang/rust/pull/41074) that this
+ is safe to do if you use the same allocator in C and Rust and also specify
+ the memory alignment for CString (except that there is no way to specify
+ the alignment for CString). It is believed that the alignment is always 1,
+ which would mean it's safe to dealloc the resulting `*mut c_char` in Tor's
+ C code. However, the Rust developers are not willing to guarantee the
+ stability of, or a contract for, this behaviour, citing concerns that this
+ is potentially extremely and subtly unsafe.
+
+4. Perform an allocation on the other side of the boundary
+
+ After crossing the boundary, the other side MUST perform an
+ allocation to copy the data and is therefore responsible for
+ freeing that memory later.
+
+5. No touching other language's enums
+
+ Rust enums should never be touched from C (nor can they be safely
+ `#[repr(C)]`) nor vice versa:
+
+ > "The chosen size is the default enum size for the target platform's C
+ > ABI. Note that enum representation in C is implementation defined, so this is
+ > really a "best guess". In particular, this may be incorrect when the C code
+ > of interest is compiled with certain flags."
+
+ (from https://gankro.github.io/nomicon/other-reprs.html)
+
+6. Type safety
+
+ Wherever possible and sensical, you SHOULD create new types in a
+ manner which prevents type confusion or misuse. For example,
+ rather than using an untyped mapping between strings and integers
+ like so:
+
+ use std::collections::HashMap;
+
+ pub fn get_elements_with_over_9000_points(map: &HashMap<String, usize>) -> Vec<String> {
+ ...
+ }
+
+ It would be safer to define a new type, such that some other usage
+ of `HashMap<String, usize>` cannot be confused for this type:
+
+ pub struct DragonBallZPowers(pub HashMap<String, usize>);
+
+ impl DragonBallZPowers {
+ pub fn over_nine_thousand<'a>(&'a self) -> Vec<&'a String> {
+ let mut powerful_enough: Vec<&'a String> = Vec::with_capacity(5);
+
+ for (character, power) in &self.0 {
+ if *power > 9000 {
+ powerful_enough.push(character);
+ }
+ }
+ powerful_enough
+ }
+ }
+
+ Note the following code, which uses Rust's type aliasing, is valid
+ but it does NOT meet the desired type safety goals:
+
+ pub type Power = usize;
+
+ pub fn over_nine_thousand(power: &Power) -> bool {
+ if *power > 9000 {
+ return true;
+ }
+ false
+ }
+
+ // We can still do the following:
+ let his_power: usize = 9001;
+ over_nine_thousand(&his_power);
+
+7. Unsafe mucking around with lifetimes
+
+ Because lifetimes are technically, in type theory terms, a kind, i.e. a
+ family of types, individual lifetimes can be treated as types. For example,
+ one can arbitrarily extend and shorten lifetime using `std::mem::transmute`:
+
+ struct R<'a>(&'a i32);
+
+ unsafe fn extend_lifetime<'b>(r: R<'b>) -> R<'static> {
+ std::mem::transmute::<R<'b>, R<'static>>(r)
+ }
+
+ unsafe fn shorten_invariant_lifetime<'b, 'c>(r: &'b mut R<'static>) -> &'b mut R<'c> {
+ std::mem::transmute::<&'b mut R<'static>, &'b mut R<'c>>(r)
+ }
+
+ Calling `extend_lifetime()` would cause an `R` passed into it to live forever
+ for the life of the program (the `'static` lifetime). Similarly,
+ `shorten_invariant_lifetime()` could be used to take something meant to live
+ forever, and cause it to disappear! This is incredibly unsafe. If you're
+ going to be mucking around with lifetimes like this, first, you better have
+ an extremely good reason, and second, you may as be honest and explicit about
+ it, and for ferris' sake just use a raw pointer.
+
+ In short, just because lifetimes can be treated like types doesn't mean you
+ should do it.
+
+8. Doing excessively unsafe things when there's a safer alternative
+
+ Similarly to #7, often there are excessively unsafe ways to do a task and a
+ simpler, safer way. You MUST choose the safer option where possible.
+
+ For example, `std::mem::transmute` can be abused in ways where casting with
+ `as` would be both simpler and safer:
+
+ // Don't do this
+ let ptr = &0;
+ let ptr_num_transmute = unsafe { std::mem::transmute::<&i32, usize>(ptr)};
+
+ // Use an `as` cast instead
+ let ptr_num_cast = ptr as *const i32 as usize;
+
+ In fact, using `std::mem::transmute` for *any* reason is a code smell and as
+ such SHOULD be avoided.
+
+9. Casting integers with `as`
+
+ This is generally fine to do, but it has some behaviours which you should be
+ aware of. Casting down chops off the high bits, e.g.:
+
+ let x: u32 = 4294967295;
+ println!("{}", x as u16); // prints 65535
+
+ Some cases which you MUST NOT do include:
+
+ * Casting an `u128` down to an `f32` or vice versa (e.g.
+ `u128::MAX as f32` but this isn't only a problem with overflowing
+ as it is also undefined behaviour for `42.0f32 as u128`),
+
+ * Casting between integers and floats when the thing being cast
+ cannot fit into the type it is being casted into, e.g.:
+
+ println!("{}", 42949.0f32 as u8); // prints 197 in debug mode and 0 in release
+ println!("{}", 1.04E+17 as u8); // prints 0 in both modes
+ println!("{}", (0.0/0.0) as i64); // prints whatever the heck LLVM wants
+
+ Because this behaviour is undefined, it can even produce segfaults in
+ safe Rust code. For example, the following program built in release
+ mode segfaults:
+
+ #[inline(never)]
+ pub fn trigger_ub(sl: &[u8; 666]) -> &[u8] {
+ // Note that the float is out of the range of `usize`, invoking UB when casting.
+ let idx = 1e99999f64 as usize;
+ &sl[idx..] // The bound check is elided due to `idx` being of an undefined value.
+ }
+
+ fn main() {
+ println!("{}", trigger_ub(&[1; 666])[999999]); // ~ out of bound
+ }
+
+ And in debug mode panics with:
+
+ thread 'main' panicked at 'slice index starts at 140721821254240 but ends at 666', /checkout/src/libcore/slice/mod.rs:754:4