initial pass at function pointers (#45)

* initial pass at function pointers

* minor nits

* add a >

* correct lifetime stuff

Author: ubsan

reference/src/representation/function-pointers.md

@@ -0,0 +1,125 @@
+# Representation of Function Pointers
+
+### Terminology
+
+In Rust, a function pointer type, is either `fn(Args...) -> Ret`,
+`extern "ABI" fn(Args...) -> Ret`, `unsafe fn(Args...) -> Ret`, and
+`unsafe extern "ABI" fn(Args...) -> Ret`.
+A function pointer is the address of a function,
+and has function pointer type.
+The pointer is implicit in the `fn` type,
+and they have no lifetime of their own;
+therefore, function pointers are assumed to point to
+a block of code with static lifetime.
+This is not necessarily always true,
+since, for example, you can unload a dynamic library.
+Therefore, this is _only_ a safety invariant,
+not a validity invariant;
+as long as one doesn't call a function pointer which points to freed memory,
+it is not undefined behavior.
+
+
+In C, a function pointer type is `Ret (*)(Args...)`, or `Ret ABI (*)(Args...)`,
+and values of function pointer type are either a null pointer value,
+or the address of a function.
+
+### Representation
+
+The ABI and layout of `(unsafe)? (extern "ABI")? fn(Args...) -> Ret`
+is exactly that of the corresonding C type --
+the lack of a null value does not change this. 
+On common platforms, this means that `*const ()` and `fn(Args...) -> Ret` have
+the same ABI and layout. This is, in fact, guaranteed by POSIX and Windows.
+This means that for the vast majority of platforms,
+
+```rust
+fn go_through_pointer(x: fn()) -> fn() {
+  let ptr = x as *const ();
+  unsafe { std::mem::transmute::<*const (), fn()>(ptr) }
+}
+```
+
+is both perfectly safe, and, in fact, required for some APIs -- notably,
+`GetProcAddress` on Windows requires you to convert from `void (*)()` to
+`void*`, to get the address of a variable;
+and the opposite is true of `dlsym`, which requires you to convert from
+`void*` to `void (*)()` in order to get the address of functions.
+This conversion is _not_ guaranteed by Rust itself, however;
+simply the implementation. If the underlying platform allows this conversion,
+so will Rust.
+
+However, null values are not supported by the Rust function pointer types --
+just like references, the expectation is that you use `Option` to create
+nullable pointers. `Option<fn(Args...) -> Ret>` will have the exact same ABI
+as `fn(Args...) -> Ret`, but additionally allows null pointer values.
+
+
+### Use
+
+Function pointers are mostly useful for talking to C -- in Rust, you would
+mostly use `T: Fn()` instead of `fn()`. If talking to a C API,
+the same caveats as apply to other FFI code should be followed.
+As an example, we shall implement the following C interface in Rust:
+
+```c
+struct Cons {
+  int data;
+  struct Cons *next;
+};
+
+struct Cons *cons(struct Cons *self, int data);
+
+/*
+  notes:
+    - func must be non-null
+    - thunk may be null, and shall be passed unchanged to func
+    - self may be null, in which case no iteration is done
+*/
+
+void iterate(struct Cons const *self, void (*func)(int, void *), void *thunk);
+bool for_all(struct Cons const *self, bool (*func)(int, void *), void *thunk);
+```
+
+```rust
+pub struct Cons {
+  data: c_int,
+  next: Option<Box<Cons>>,
+}
+
+#[no_mangle]
+pub extern "C" fn cons(node: Option<Box<Cons>>, data: c_int) -> Box<Cons> {
+  Box::new(Cons { data, next: node })
+}
+
+#[no_mangle]
+pub extern "C" fn iterate(
+  node: Option<&Cons>, 
+  func: extern fn(i32, *mut c_void), // note - non-nullable
+  thunk: *mut c_void, // note - this is a thunk, so it's just passed raw
+) {
+  let mut it = node;
+  while let Some(node) = it {
+    func(node.data, thunk);
+    it = node.next.as_ref().map(|x| &**x);
+  }
+}
+
+#[no_mangle]
+pub extern "C" fn for_all(
+  node: Option<&Cons>, 
+  func: extern fn(i32, *mut c_void) -> bool,
+  thunk: *mut c_void,
+) -> bool {
+  let mut it = node;
+  while let Some(node) = node {
+    if !func(node.data, thunk) {
+      return false;
+    }
+    it = node.next.as_ref().map(|x| &**x);
+  }
+}
+```
+
+### Unresolved Questions
+
+- dunno