mozilla/rust — pull request #14069 by alexcrichton (2014-05-09 21:48:50+00:00)
Title: core: Remove the cast module

This commit revisits the `cast` module in libcore and libstd, and scrutinizes
all functions inside of it. The result was to remove the `cast` module entirely,
folding all functionality into the `mem` module. Specifically, this is the fate
of each function in the `cast` module.

* transmute - This function was moved to `mem`, but it is now marked as
#[unstable]. This is due to planned changes to the `transmute`
function and how it can be invoked (see the #[unstable] comment).
For more information, see RFC 5 and #12898

* transmute_copy - This function was moved to `mem`, with clarification that is
is not an error to invoke it with T/U that are different
sizes, but rather that it is strongly discouraged. This
function is now #[stable]

* forget - This function was moved to `mem` and marked #[stable]

* bump_box_refcount - This function was removed due to the deprecation of
managed boxes as well as its questionable utility.

* transmute_mut - This function was previously deprecated, and removed as part
of this commit.

* transmute_mut_unsafe - This function doesn't serve much of a purpose when it
can be achieved with an `as` in safe code, so it was
removed.

* transmute_lifetime - This function was removed because it is likely a strong
indication that code is incorrect in the first place.

* transmute_mut_lifetime - This function was removed for the same reasons as
`transmute_lifetime`

* copy_lifetime - This function was moved to `mem`, but it is marked
`#[unstable]` now due to the likelihood of being removed in
the future if it is found to not be very useful.

* copy_mut_lifetime - This function was also moved to `mem`, but had the same
treatment as `copy_lifetime`.

* copy_lifetime_vec - This function was removed because it is not used today,
and its existence is not necessary with DST
(copy_lifetime will suffice).

In summary, the cast module was stripped down to these functions, and then the
functions were moved to the `mem` module.

transmute - #[unstable]
transmute_copy - #[stable]
forget - #[stable]
copy_lifetime - #[unstable]
copy_mut_lifetime - #[unstable]