MaybeUninit

Initially added:

In previous releases of Rust, the mem::uninitialized function has allowed you to bypass Rust's initialization checks by pretending that you've initialized a value at type T without doing anything. One of the main uses of this function has been to lazily allocate arrays.

However, mem::uninitialized is an incredibly dangerous operation that essentially cannot be used correctly as the Rust compiler assumes that values are properly initialized. For example, calling mem::uninitialized::<bool>() causes instantaneous undefined behavior as, from Rust's point of view, the uninitialized bits are neither 0 (for false) nor 1 (for true) - the only two allowed bit patterns for bool.

To remedy this situation, in Rust 1.36.0, the type MaybeUninit<T> has been stabilized. The Rust compiler will understand that it should not assume that a MaybeUninit<T> is a properly initialized T. Therefore, you can do gradual initialization more safely and eventually use .assume_init() once you are certain that maybe_t: MaybeUninit<T> contains an initialized T.

As MaybeUninit<T> is the safer alternative, starting with Rust 1.39, the function mem::uninitialized will be deprecated.