Add unstable-book articles on fnbox and boxed_closure_impls.

Author: qnighy

src/doc/unstable-book/src/library-features/boxed-closure-impls.md

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+# `boxed_closure_impls`
+
+The tracking issue for this feature is [#48055]
+
+[#48055]: https://github.com/rust-lang/rust/issues/48055
+
+------------------------
+
+This includes the following blanket impls for closure traits:
+
+```rust,ignore
+impl<A, F: FnOnce<A> + ?Sized> FnOnce for Box<F> {
+    // ...
+}
+impl<A, F: FnMut<A> + ?Sized> FnMut for Box<F> {
+    // ...
+}
+impl<A, F: Fn<A> + ?Sized> Fn for Box<F> {
+    // ...
+}
+```
+
+## Usage
+
+`Box` can be used almost transparently. You can even use `Box<dyn FnOnce>` now.
+
+```rust
+#![feature(boxed_closure_impls)]
+
+fn main() {
+    let resource = "hello".to_owned();
+    // Create a boxed once-callable closure
+    let f: Box<dyn FnOnce(&i32)> = Box::new(|x| {
+        let s = resource;
+        println!("{}", x);
+        println!("{}", s);
+    });
+
+    // Call it
+    f();
+}
+```
+
+## The reason for instability
+
+This is unstable because of the first impl.
+
+It would have been easy if we're allowed to tighten the bound:
+
+```rust,ignore
+impl<A, F: FnMut<A> + ?Sized> FnOnce for Box<F> {
+    // ...
+}
+```
+
+However, `Box<dyn FnOnce()>` drops out of the modified impl.
+To rescue this, we had had a temporary solution called [`fnbox`][fnbox].
+
+[fnbox]: library-features/fnbox.html
+
+Unfortunately, due to minor coherence reasons, `fnbox` and
+`FnOnce for Box<impl FnMut>` had not been able to coexist.
+We had preferred `fnbox` for the time being.
+
+Now, as [`unsized_locals`][unsized_locals] is implemented, we can just write the
+original impl:
+
+[unsized_locals]: language-features/unsized-locals.html
+
+```rust,ignore
+impl<A, F: FnOnce<A> + ?Sized> FnOnce for Box<F> {
+    type Output = <F as FnOnce<A>>::Output;
+
+    extern "rust-call" fn call_once(self, args: A) -> Self::Output {
+        // *self is an unsized rvalue
+        <F as FnOnce<A>>::call_once(*self, args)
+    }
+}
+```
+
+However, since `unsized_locals` is a very young feature, we're careful about
+this `FnOnce` impl now.
+
+There's another reason for instability: for compatibility with `fnbox`,
+we currently allow specialization of the `Box<impl FnOnce>` impl:
+
+```rust,ignore
+impl<A, F: FnOnce<A> + ?Sized> FnOnce for Box<F> {
+    type Output = <F as FnOnce<A>>::Output;
+
+    // we have "default" here
+    default extern "rust-call" fn call_once(self, args: A) -> Self::Output {
+        <F as FnOnce<A>>::call_once(*self, args)
+    }
+}
+```
+
+This isn't what we desire in the long term.

src/doc/unstable-book/src/library-features/fnbox.md

@@ -0,0 +1,252 @@
+# `fnbox`
+
+The tracking issue for this feature is [#28796]
+
+[#28796]: https://github.com/rust-lang/rust/issues/28796
+
+------------------------
+
+As an analogy to `&dyn Fn()` and `&mut dyn FnMut()`, you may have expected
+`Box<dyn FnOnce()>` to work. But it hadn't until the recent improvement!
+`FnBox` had been a **temporary** solution for this until we are able to pass
+trait objects by value.
+
+See [`boxed_closure_impls`][boxed_closure_impls] for the newer approach.
+
+[boxed_closure_impls]: library-features/boxed-closure-impls.html
+
+## Usage
+
+If you want to box `FnOnce` closures, you can use `Box<dyn FnBox()>` instead of `Box<dyn FnOnce()>`.
+
+```rust
+#![feature(fnbox)]
+
+use std::boxed::FnBox;
+
+fn main() {
+    let resource = "hello".to_owned();
+    // Create a boxed once-callable closure
+    let f: Box<dyn FnBox() -> String> = Box::new(|| resource);
+
+    // Call it
+    let s = f();
+    println!("{}", s);
+}
+```
+
+## How `Box<dyn FnOnce()>` did not work
+
+**Spoiler**: [`boxed_closure_impls`][boxed_closure_impls] actually implements
+`Box<dyn FnOnce()>`! This didn't work because we lacked features like
+[`unsized_locals`][unsized_locals] for a long time. Therefore, this section
+just explains historical reasons for `FnBox`.
+
+[unsized_locals]: language-features/unsized-locals.html
+
+### First approach: just provide `Box` adapter impl
+
+The first (and natural) attempt for `Box<dyn FnOnce()>` would look like:
+
+```rust,ignore
+impl<A, F: FnOnce<A> + ?Sized> FnOnce<A> for Box<F> {
+    type Output = <F as FnOnce<A>>::Output;
+
+    extern "rust-call" fn call_once(self, args: A) -> Self::Output {
+        <F as FnOnce<A>>::call_once(*self, args)
+    }
+}
+```
+
+However, this doesn't work. We have to relax the `Sized` bound for `F` because
+we expect trait objects here, but `*self` must be `Sized` because it is passed
+as a function argument.
+
+### The second attempt: add `FnOnce::call_box`
+
+One may come up with this workaround: modify `FnOnce`'s definition like this:
+
+```rust,ignore
+pub trait FnOnce<Args> {
+    type Output;
+
+    extern "rust-call" fn call_once(self, args: Args) -> Self::Output;
+    // Add this new method
+    extern "rust-call" fn call_box(self: Box<Self>, args: Args) -> Self::Output;
+}
+```
+
+...and then, modify the `impl` like this:
+
+```rust,ignore
+impl<A, F: FnOnce<A> + ?Sized> FnOnce<A> for Box<F> {
+    type Output = <F as FnOnce<A>>::Output;
+
+    extern "rust-call" fn call_once(self, args: A) -> Self::Output {
+        // We can use `call_box` here!
+        <F as FnOnce<A>>::call_box(self, args)
+    }
+    // We'll have to define this in every impl of `FnOnce`.
+    extern "rust-call" fn call_box(self: Box<Self>, args: A) -> Self::Output {
+        <F as FnOnce<A>>::call_box(*self, args)
+    }
+}
+```
+
+What's wrong with this? The problem here is crates:
+
+- `FnOnce` is in `libcore`, as it shouldn't depend on allocations.
+- `Box` is in `liballoc`, as it:s the very allocated pointer.
+
+It is impossible to add `FnOnce::call_box` because it is reverse-dependency.
+
+There's another problem: `call_box` can't have defaults.
+`default impl` from the specialization RFC may resolve this problem.
+
+### The third attempt: add `FnBox` that contains `call_box`
+
+`call_box` can't reside in `FnOnce`, but how about defining a new trait in
+`liballoc`?
+
+`FnBox` is almost a copy of `FnOnce`, but with `call_box`:
+
+```rust,ignore
+pub trait FnBox<Args> {
+    type Output;
+
+    extern "rust-call" fn call_box(self: Box<Self>, args: Args) -> Self::Output;
+}
+```
+
+For `Sized` types (from which we coerce into `dyn FnBox`), we define
+the blanket impl that proxies calls to `FnOnce`:
+
+```rust,ignore
+impl<A, F: FnOnce<A>> FnBox<A> for F {
+    type Output = <F as FnOnce<A>>::Output;
+
+    extern "rust-call" fn call_box(self: Box<Self>, args: A) -> Self::Output {
+        // Here we assume `F` to be sized.
+        <F as FnOnce<A>>::call_once(*self, args)
+    }
+}
+```
+
+Now it looks like that we can define `FnOnce` for `Box<F>`.
+
+```rust,ignore
+impl<A, F: FnBox<A> + ?Sized> FnOnce<A> for Box<F> {
+    type Output = <F as FnOnce<A>>::Output;
+
+    extern "rust-call" fn call_once(self, args: A) -> Self::Output {
+        <F as FnBox<A>>::call_box(self, args)
+    }
+}
+```
+
+## Limitations of `FnBox`
+
+### Interaction with HRTB
+
+Firstly, the actual implementation is different from the one presented above.
+Instead of implementing `FnOnce` for `Box<impl FnBox>`, `liballoc` only
+implements `FnOnce` for `Box<dyn FnBox>`.
+
+```rust,ignore
+impl<'a, A, R> FnOnce<A> for Box<dyn FnBox<A, Output = R> + 'a> {
+    type Output = R;
+
+    extern "rust-call" fn call_once(self, args: A) -> Self::Output {
+        FnBox::call_box(*self, args)
+    }
+}
+
+// Sendable variant
+impl<'a, A, R> FnOnce<A> for Box<dyn FnBox<A, Output = R> + Send + 'a> {
+    type Output = R;
+
+    extern "rust-call" fn call_once(self, args: A) -> Self::Output {
+        FnBox::call_box(*self, args)
+    }
+}
+```
+
+The consequence is that the following example doesn't work:
+
+```rust,compile_fail
+#![feature(fnbox)]
+
+use std::boxed::FnBox;
+
+fn main() {
+    let f: Box<dyn FnBox(&i32)> = Box::new(|x| println!("{}", x));
+    f(42);
+}
+```
+
+Note that `dyn FnBox(&i32)` desugars to
+`dyn for<'r> FnBox<(&'r i32,), Output = ()>`.
+It isn't covered in `dyn FnBox<A, Output = R> + 'a` or
+`dyn FnBox<A, Output = R> + Send + 'a` due to HRTB.
+
+### Interaction with `Fn`/`FnMut`
+
+It would be natural to have the following impls:
+
+```rust,ignore
+impl<A, F: FnMut<A> + ?Sized> FnMut<A> for Box<F> {
+    // ...
+}
+impl<A, F: Fn<A> + ?Sized> Fn<A> for Box<F> {
+    // ...
+}
+```
+
+However, we hadn't been able to write these in presense of `FnBox`
+(until [`boxed_closure_impls`][boxed_closure_impls] lands).
+
+To have `FnMut<A>` for `Box<F>`, we should have (at least) this impl:
+
+```rust,ignore
+// Note here we only impose `F: FnMut<A>`.
+// If we can write `F: FnOnce<A>` here, that will resolve all problems.
+impl<A, F: FnMut<A> + ?Sized> FnOnce<A> for Box<F> {
+    // ...
+}
+```
+
+Unfortunately, the compiler complains that it **overlaps** with our
+`dyn FnBox()` impls. At first glance, the overlap must not happen.
+The `A` generic parameter does the trick here: due to coherence rules,
+a downstream crate may define the following impl:
+
+```rust,ignore
+struct MyStruct;
+impl<'a> FnMut<MyStruct> for dyn FnBox<MyStruct, Output = ()> + 'a {
+    // ...
+}
+```
+
+The trait solver doesn't know that `A` is always a tuple type, so this is
+still possible. With this in mind, the compiler emits the overlap error.
+
+## Modification
+
+For compatibility with [`boxed_closure_impls`][boxed_closure_impls],
+we now have a slightly modified version of `FnBox`:
+
+```rust,ignore
+// It's now a subtrait of `FnOnce`
+pub trait FnBox<Args>: FnOnce<Args> {
+    // now uses FnOnce::Output
+    // type Output;
+
+    extern "rust-call" fn call_box(self: Box<Self>, args: Args) -> Self::Output;
+}
+```
+
+## The future of `fnbox`
+
+`FnBox` has long been considered a temporary solution for `Box<FnOnce>`
+problem. Since we have [`boxed_closure_impls`][boxed_closure_impls] now,
+it may be deprecated and removed in the future.