arbitrary_self_types_pointers

The tracking issue for this feature is: [#44874]

This extends the arbitrary self types feature to allow methods to receive self by pointer. For example:

#![feature(arbitrary_self_types_pointers)]

struct A;

impl A {
    fn m(self: *const Self) {}
}

fn main() {
    let a = A;
    let a_ptr: *const A = &a as *const A;
    a_ptr.m();
}

In general this is not advised: it's thought to be better practice to wrap raw pointers in a newtype wrapper which implements the core::ops::Receiver trait, then you need "only" the arbitrary_self_types feature. For example:

#![feature(arbitrary_self_types)]
#![allow(dead_code)]

struct A;

impl A {
    fn m(self: Wrapper<Self>) {} // can extract the pointer and do
        // what it needs
}

struct Wrapper<T>(*const T);

impl<T> core::ops::Receiver for Wrapper<T> {
    type Target = T;
}

fn main() {
    let a = A;
    let a_ptr: *const A = &a as *const A;
    let a_wrapper = Wrapper(a_ptr);
    a_wrapper.m();
}