Function item types

When referred to, a function item, or the constructor of a tuple-like struct or enum variant, yields a zero-sized value of its function item type.

That type explicitly identifies the function - its name, its type arguments, and its early-bound lifetime arguments (but not its late-bound lifetime arguments, which are only assigned when the function is called) - so the value does not need to contain an actual function pointer, and no indirection is needed when the function is called.

There is no syntax that directly refers to a function item type, but the compiler will display the type as something like fn(u32) -> i32 {fn_name} in error messages.

Because the function item type explicitly identifies the function, the item types of different functions - different items, or the same item with different generics - are distinct, and mixing them will create a type error:

#![allow(unused)] fn main() { fn foo<T>() { } let x = &mut foo::<i32>; *x = foo::<u32>; //~ ERROR mismatched types }

However, there is a coercion from function items to function pointers with the same signature, which is triggered not only when a function item is used when a function pointer is directly expected, but also when different function item types with the same signature meet in different arms of the same if or match:

#![allow(unused)] fn main() { let want_i32 = false; fn foo<T>() { } // `foo_ptr_1` has function pointer type `fn()` here let foo_ptr_1: fn() = foo::<i32>; // ... and so does `foo_ptr_2` - this type-checks. let foo_ptr_2 = if want_i32 { foo::<i32> } else { foo::<u32> }; }

All function items implement Fn, FnMut, FnOnce, Copy, Clone, Send, and Sync.