Function copy_nonoverlapping

pub const unsafe fn copy_nonoverlapping<T>(
    src: *const T,
    dst: *mut T,
    count: usize,
)

Copies count * size_of::<T>() bytes from src to dst. The source and destination must not overlap.

For regions of memory which might overlap, use copy instead.

copy_nonoverlapping is semantically equivalent to C’s memcpy, but with the argument order swapped.

The copy is “untyped” in the sense that data may be uninitialized or otherwise violate the requirements of T. The initialization state is preserved exactly.

Safety

Behavior is undefined if any of the following conditions are violated:

• src must be valid for reads of count * size_of::<T>() bytes.

• dst must be valid for writes of count * size_of::<T>() bytes.

• Both src and dst must be properly aligned.

• The region of memory beginning at src with a size of count * size_of::<T>() bytes must not overlap with the region of memory beginning at dst with the same size.

Like read, copy_nonoverlapping creates a bitwise copy of T, regardless of whether T is Copy. If T is not Copy, using both the values in the region beginning at *src and the region beginning at *dst can violate memory safety.

Note that even if the effectively copied size (count * size_of::<T>()) is 0, the pointers must be non-null and properly aligned.

Examples

Manually implement Vec::append:

use std::ptr;

/// Moves all the elements of `src` into `dst`, leaving `src` empty.
fn append<T>(dst: &mut Vec<T>, src: &mut Vec<T>) {
    let src_len = src.len();
    let dst_len = dst.len();

    // Ensure that `dst` has enough capacity to hold all of `src`.
    dst.reserve(src_len);

    unsafe {
        // The call to add is always safe because `Vec` will never
        // allocate more than `isize::MAX` bytes.
        let dst_ptr = dst.as_mut_ptr().add(dst_len);
        let src_ptr = src.as_ptr();

        // Truncate `src` without dropping its contents. We do this first,
        // to avoid problems in case something further down panics.
        src.set_len(0);

        // The two regions cannot overlap because mutable references do
        // not alias, and two different vectors cannot own the same
        // memory.
        ptr::copy_nonoverlapping(src_ptr, dst_ptr, src_len);

        // Notify `dst` that it now holds the contents of `src`.
        dst.set_len(dst_len + src_len);
    }
}

let mut a = vec!['r'];
let mut b = vec!['u', 's', 't'];

append(&mut a, &mut b);

assert_eq!(a, &['r', 'u', 's', 't']);
assert!(b.is_empty());