Remove recommendation about idiomatic syntax for Arc::clone
I believe we should not make this recommendation. I don't want to argue that `Arc::clone` is less idiomatic than `arc.clone`, but that the choice is not clear cut and that we should not be making this kind of call in the docs.
The `.clone()` form has advantages too: it is more succinct, it is more likely to be understood by beginners, and it is more uniform with other `clone` calls, indeed with most other method calls.
Whichever approach is better, I think that this discussion belongs in a style guide or textbook, rather than the library docs. We don't talk much about idiomatic code in the docs, this place is pretty exceptional.
The recommendation is also not followed in this repo. It is hard to figure out how many calls there are of the `.clone()` form, but there are 1550 uses of `Arc` and only 65 uses of `Arc::clone`. The recommendation has existed for over two years.
The recommendation was added in https://github.com/rust-lang/rust/pull/42137, as a result of https://github.com/rust-lang/rfcs/pull/1954. However, note that that RFC was closed because it was not necessary to change the docs (the original RFC proposed a new function instead). So I don't think an RFC is necessary here (and I'm not trying to re-litigate the discussion on that RFC (which favoured `Arc::clone` as idiomatic) in any case).
cc @nical (who added the docs in the first place; sorry :-) )
r? @alexcrichton (or someone else on @rust-lang/libs )
Add `impl<T> FromIterator<T> for Arc/Rc<[T]>`
Add implementations of `FromIterator<T> for Arc/Rc<[T]>` with symmetrical logic.
This also takes advantage of specialization in the case of iterators with known length (`TrustedLen`) to elide the final allocation/copying from a `Vec<T>` into `Rc<[T]>` because we can allocate the space for the `Rc<[T]>` directly when the size is known. This is the primary motivation and why this is to be preferred over `iter.collect::<Vec<_>>().into(): Rc<[T]>`.
Moreover, this PR does some refactoring in some places.
r? @RalfJung for the code
cc @alexcrichton from T-libs
It is unclear if accessing an integer after `drop_in_place` has been
called on it is undefined behaviour or not, as demonstrated by the
discussion in
https://github.com/rust-lang/rust/pull/60766#pullrequestreview-243414222.
Avoid these uncertainties by using String which frees memory in its
`drop_in_place` to make sure this is undefined behaviour. The message in
the docs should be to watch out and not access the data after that, not
discussing when one maybe could get away with it O:-).
Implement Weak::{strong_count, weak_count}
The counters are also useful on `Weak`, not just on strong references (`Rc` or `Arc`).
In situations where there are still strong references around, you can also get these counts by temporarily upgrading and adjusting the values accordingly. Using the methods introduced here is simpler to do, less error-prone (since you can't forget to adjust the counts), can also be used when no strong references are around anymore, and might be more efficient due to not having to temporarily create an `Rc`.
This is mainly useful in assertions or tests of complex data structures. Data structures might have internal invariants that make them the sole owner of a `Weak` pointer, and an assertion on the weak count could be used to ensure that this indeed happens as expected. Due to the presence of `Weak::upgrade`, the `strong_count` becomes less useful, but it still seems worthwhile to mirror the API of `Rc`.
TODO:
* [X] Tracking issue - https://github.com/rust-lang/rust/issues/57977
Closes https://github.com/rust-lang/rust/issues/50158
