checked_array

This crate provides an API abstraction for array-like linear collections which exports checked APIs only.

Why checked_array

Rust's std::vec and std::slice modules have the problem, that they expose APIs which will implicitly panic if called with a wrong argument. Common examples are:

• split_at*
• rotate*
• clone_from_slice
• copy_from_slice
• etc.

This is a problem because it does not only violate common design principles for safe languages like "explicit is better than implicit", but it is also not very typical for Rust itself, which usually provides fallible APIs using Option or Result.

checked_array tries to address this problem by defining checked APIs and providing an opaque generic wrapper which only implements these checked APIs.

checked_array and alloc

There is one exception to the safety guarantees of checked_array: if the wrapped type uses alloc/std::alloc, we cannot catch any allocation errors.

To make the user aware of this problem, we introduce the WillPanic error type if for wrapped types that will panic allocation errors.