High level overview of the algorithm steps of Rust's borrow checker?

• polonius

  31 1,242 0.0 Rust

  Defines the Rust borrow checker.

  

I have been starting to look through the polonius code, and have read as much as I can about how the borrow checker works, and I understand how it works at a high level. But I don't understand the algorithm it uses internally (the specific rustc algorithm, the polonius algorithm, or the theoretical/hypothetical pseudocode algorithm). It will take some time to grok polonius.

• lobster

  37 2,125 9.4 C++

  The Lobster Programming Language

I really like the idea of ownership and ownership types / affine types, which it seems like the borrow checker implements (for garbage collection features and the general type theory benefits you get). Though I am no type theory expert, just been browsing around trying to figure out how the ideal compiler would work, finding things like lobster lang and kind lang along the way.

• InfluxDB

  www.influxdata.com sponsored

  Power Real-Time Data Analytics at Scale. Get real-time insights from all types of time series data with InfluxDB. Ingest, query, and analyze billions of data points in real-time with unbounded cardinality.

  

• BorrowScript

  9 1,432 5.5 HTML

  TypeScript with a Borrow Checker. Multi-threaded, Tiny binaries. No GC. Easy to write.

I asked how to implement a "borrow checker" in JavaScript in my initial attempts (I've learned a decent amount since), which led me to randomly finding BorrowScript that seems to have another implementation I think, so going to be taking a deeper look there for inspiration as well. But if one could explain the steps of the algorithm, and how it integrates/relates with the type inference process, that would be of great use. Not for learning how to use Rust, but to learn how this aspect of its compiler works.

• BorrowScriptInterpreter

  1 9 8.0 Rust

  Discontinued A compiler and toolchain for the Stream programming language [Moved to: https://github.com/Isaac-Leonard/Stream]

I asked how to implement a "borrow checker" in JavaScript in my initial attempts (I've learned a decent amount since), which led me to randomly finding BorrowScript that seems to have another implementation I think, so going to be taking a deeper look there for inspiration as well. But if one could explain the steps of the algorithm, and how it integrates/relates with the type inference process, that would be of great use. Not for learning how to use Rust, but to learn how this aspect of its compiler works.

• Kind

  21 2,565 9.5 Rust

  Discontinued A next-gen functional language [Moved to: https://github.com/Kindelia/Kind2] (by Kindelia)

  

I really like the idea of ownership and ownership types / affine types, which it seems like the borrow checker implements (for garbage collection features and the general type theory benefits you get). Though I am no type theory expert, just been browsing around trying to figure out how the ideal compiler would work, finding things like lobster lang and kind lang along the way.

• WorkOS

  workos.com sponsored

  The modern identity platform for B2B SaaS. The APIs are flexible and easy-to-use, supporting authentication, user identity, and complex enterprise features like SSO and SCIM provisioning.

  

Suggest a related project