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The Rust Programming Language
book

The Rust Programming Language

by Steve Klabnik, Carol Nichols
July 2018
Intermediate to advanced content levelIntermediate to advanced
552 pages
13h 50m
English
No Starch Press
Content preview from The Rust Programming Language

15SMART POINTERS

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A pointer is a general concept for a variable that contains an address in memory. This address refers to, or “points at,” some other data. The most common kind of pointer in Rust is a reference, which you learned about in Chapter 4. References are indicated by the & symbol and borrow the value they point to. They don’t have any special capabilities other than referring to data. Also, they don’t have any overhead and are the kind of pointer we use most often.

Smart pointers, on the other hand, are data structures that not only act like a pointer but also have additional metadata and capabilities. The concept of smart pointers isn’t ...

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Publisher Resources

ISBN: 9781492067665Errata Page