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trpl: Improve clarity in Concurrency
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johncf committed Sep 19, 2015
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59 changes: 28 additions & 31 deletions src/doc/trpl/concurrency.md
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -26,8 +26,8 @@ to help us make sense of code that can possibly be concurrent.
### `Send`

The first trait we're going to talk about is
[`Send`](../std/marker/trait.Send.html). When a type `T` implements `Send`, it indicates
to the compiler that something of this type is able to have ownership transferred
[`Send`](../std/marker/trait.Send.html). When a type `T` implements `Send`, it
indicates that something of this type is able to have ownership transferred
safely between threads.

This is important to enforce certain restrictions. For example, if we have a
Expand All @@ -42,13 +42,19 @@ us enforce that it can't leave the current thread.
### `Sync`

The second of these traits is called [`Sync`](../std/marker/trait.Sync.html).
When a type `T` implements `Sync`, it indicates to the compiler that something
When a type `T` implements `Sync`, it indicates that something
of this type has no possibility of introducing memory unsafety when used from
multiple threads concurrently.

For example, sharing immutable data with an atomic reference count is
threadsafe. Rust provides a type like this, `Arc<T>`, and it implements `Sync`,
so it is safe to share between threads.
multiple threads concurrently through shared references. This implies that
types which don't have [interior mutability](mutability.html) are inherently
`Sync`, which includes simple primitive types (like `u8`) and aggregate types
containing them.

For sharing references across threads, Rust provides a wrapper type called
`Arc<T>`. `Arc<T>` implements `Send` and `Sync` if and only if `T` implements
both `Send` and `Sync`. For example, an object of type `Arc<RefCell<U>>` cannot
be transferred across threads because
[`RefCell`](choosing-your-guarantees.html#refcell%3Ct%3E) does not implement
`Sync`, consequently `Arc<RefCell<U>>` would not implement `Send`.

These two traits allow you to use the type system to make strong guarantees
about the properties of your code under concurrency. Before we demonstrate
Expand All @@ -70,7 +76,7 @@ fn main() {
}
```

The `thread::spawn()` method accepts a closure, which is executed in a
The `thread::spawn()` method accepts a [closure](closures.html), which is executed in a
new thread. It returns a handle to the thread, that can be used to
wait for the child thread to finish and extract its result:

Expand Down Expand Up @@ -215,29 +221,18 @@ fn main() {
}
```

Note that the value of `i` is bound (copied) to the closure and not shared
among the threads.

If we'd tried to use `Mutex<T>` without wrapping it in an `Arc<T>` we would have
seen another error like:

```text
error: the trait `core::marker::Send` is not implemented for the type `std::sync::mutex::MutexGuard<'_, collections::vec::Vec<u32>>` [E0277]
thread::spawn(move || {
^~~~~~~~~~~~~
note: `std::sync::mutex::MutexGuard<'_, collections::vec::Vec<u32>>` cannot be sent between threads safely
thread::spawn(move || {
^~~~~~~~~~~~~
```

You see, [`Mutex`](../std/sync/struct.Mutex.html) has a
[`lock`](../std/sync/struct.Mutex.html#method.lock)
method which has this signature:
Also note that [`lock`](../std/sync/struct.Mutex.html#method.lock) method of
[`Mutex`](../std/sync/struct.Mutex.html) has this signature:

```ignore
fn lock(&self) -> LockResult<MutexGuard<T>>
```

and because `Send` is not implemented for `MutexGuard<T>`, we couldn't have
transferred the guard across thread boundaries on it's own.
and because `Send` is not implemented for `MutexGuard<T>`, the guard cannot
cross thread boundaries, ensuring thread-locality of lock acquire and release.

Let's examine the body of the thread more closely:

Expand Down Expand Up @@ -317,22 +312,24 @@ use std::sync::mpsc;
fn main() {
let (tx, rx) = mpsc::channel();

for _ in 0..10 {
for i in 0..10 {
let tx = tx.clone();

thread::spawn(move || {
let answer = 42;
let answer = i * i;

tx.send(answer);
});
}

rx.recv().ok().expect("Could not receive answer");
for _ in 0..10 {
println!("{}", rx.recv().unwrap());
}
}
```

A `u32` is `Send` because we can make a copy. So we create a thread, ask it to calculate
the answer, and then it `send()`s us the answer over the channel.
Here we create 10 threads, asking each to calculate the square of a number (`i`
at the time of `spawn()`), and then `send()` back the answer over the channel.


## Panics
Expand Down

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