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Pitfalls of Safe Rust

(corrode.dev)
168 points pjmlp | 1 comments | 04 Apr 25 17:55 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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forrestthewoods ◴[06 Apr 25 19:18 UTC] No.43604132[source]▶
> Overflow errors can happen pretty easily

No they can’t. Overflows aren’t a real problem. Do not add checked_mul to all your maths.

Thankfully Rust changed overflow behavior from “undefined” to “well defined twos-complement”.

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int_19h ◴[06 Apr 25 22:23 UTC] No.43605473[source]▶
The vast majority of code that does arithmetic will not produce a correct result with two's complement. It is simply assuming that the values involved are small enough that it won't matter. Sometimes it is a correct assumption, but whenever it involves anything derived from inputs, it can go very wrong.
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1. zozbot234 ◴[06 Apr 25 22:31 UTC] No.43605520[source]▶
For any arithmetic expression that involves only + - * operators and equally-sized machine words, two's complement will actually yield a "correct" result. It's just that the given result might be indicating a different range than you expect.