| # Sharing the trait solver with rust-analyzer |
| |
| rust-analyzer can be viewed as a compiler frontend: it performs tasks similar to the parts of rustc |
| that run before code generation, such as parsing, lexing, AST construction and lowering, HIR |
| lowering, and even limited MIR building and const evaluation. |
| |
| However, because rust-analyzer is primarily a language server, its architecture differs in several |
| important ways from that of rustc. |
| Despite these differences, a substantial portion of its responsibilities—most notably type |
| inference and trait solving—overlap with the compiler. |
| |
| To avoid duplication and to maintain consistency between the two implementations, rust-analyzer |
| reuses several crates from rustc, relying on shared abstractions wherever possible. |
| |
| ## Shared Crates |
| |
| Currently, rust-analyzer depends on several `rustc_*` crates from the compiler: |
| |
| - `rustc_abi` |
| - `rustc_ast_ir` |
| - `rustc_index` |
| - `rustc_lexer` |
| - `rustc_next_trait_solver` |
| - `rustc_parse_format` |
| - `rustc_pattern_analysis` |
| - `rustc_type_ir` |
| |
| Since these crates are not published on `crates.io` as part of the compiler's normal distribution |
| process, rust-analyzer maintains its own publishing pipeline. |
| It uses the [rustc-auto-publish script][rustc-auto-publish] to publish these crates to `crates.io` |
| with the prefix `ra-ap-rustc_*` |
| (for example: https://crates.io/crates/ra-ap-rustc_next_trait_solver). |
| rust-analyzer then depends on these re-published crates in its own build. |
| |
| For trait solving specifically, the primary shared crates are `rustc_type_ir` and |
| `rustc_next_trait_solver`, which provide the core IR and solver logic used by both compiler |
| frontends. |
| |
| ## The Abstraction Layer |
| |
| Because rust-analyzer is a language server, it must handle frequently changing source code and |
| partially invalid or incomplete source codes. |
| This requires an infrastructure quite different from rustc's, especially in the layers between |
| the source code and the HIR—for example, `Ty` and its backing interner. |
| |
| To bridge these differences, the compiler provides `rustc_type_ir` as an abstraction layer shared |
| between rustc and rust-analyzer. |
| This crate defines the fundamental interfaces used to represent types, predicates, and the context |
| required by the trait solver. |
| Both rustc and rust-analyzer implement these traits for their own concrete type representations, |
| and `rustc_next_trait_solver` is written to be generic over these abstractions. |
| |
| In addition to these interfaces, `rustc_type_ir` also includes several non-trivial components built |
| on top of the abstraction layer—such as elaboration logic and the search graph machinery used by the |
| solver. |
| |
| ## Design Concepts |
| |
| `rustc_next_trait_solver` is intended to depend only on the abstract interfaces defined in |
| `rustc_type_ir`. |
| To support this, the type-system traits in `rustc_type_ir` must expose every interface the solver |
| requires—for example, [creating a new inference type variable][ir new_infer] |
| ([rustc][rustc new_infer], [rust-analyzer][r-a new_infer]). |
| For items that do not need compiler-specific representations, `rustc_type_ir` defines them directly |
| as structs or enums parameterized over these traits—for example, [`TraitRef`][ir tr]. |
| |
| The following are some notable items from the `rustc_type_ir` crate. |
| |
| ### `trait Interner` |
| |
| The central trait in this design is [`Interner`][ir interner], which specifies all |
| implementation-specific details for both rustc and rust-analyzer. |
| Among its essential responsibilities: |
| |
| - it **specifies** the concrete types used by the implementation via its |
| [associated types][ir interner assocs]; these form the backbone of how each compiler frontend |
| instantiates the shared IR, |
| - it provides the context required by the solver (e.g., querying [lang items][ir require_lang_item], |
| enumerating [all blanket impls for a trait][ir for_each_blanket_impl]); |
| - and it must implement [`IrPrint`][ir irprint] for formatting and tracing. |
| In practice, these `IrPrint` impls simply route to existing formatting logic inside rustc or |
| rust-analyzer. |
| |
| In rustc, [`TyCtxt` implements `Interner`][rustc interner impl]: it exposes the rustc's query |
| methods, and the required `Interner` trait methods are implemented by invoking those queries. |
| In rust-analyzer, the implementing type is named [`DbInterner`][r-a interner impl] (as it performs |
| most interning through the [salsa] database), and most of its methods are backed by salsa queries |
| rather than rustc queries. |
| |
| ### `mod inherent` |
| |
| Another notable item in `rustc_type_ir` is the [`inherent` module][ir inherent]. |
| This module provides *forward definitions* of inherent methods—expressed as traits—corresponding to |
| methods that exist on compiler-specific types such as `Ty` or `GenericArg`. |
| These definitions allow the generic crates (such as `rustc_next_trait_solver`) to call methods that |
| are implemented differently in rustc and rust-analyzer. |
| |
| Code in generic crates should import these definitions with: |
| |
| ```rust |
| use inherent::*; |
| ``` |
| |
| These forward definitions **must never be used inside the concrete implementations themselves**. |
| Crates that implement the traits from `mod inherent` should call the actual inherent methods on |
| their concrete types once those types are nameable. |
| |
| You can find rustc’s implementations of these traits in the |
| [rustc_middle::ty::inherent][rustc inherent impl] module. |
| For rust-analyzer, the corresponding implementations are located across several modules under |
| `hir_ty::next_solver`, such as [hir_ty::next_solver::region][r-a inherent impl]. |
| |
| ### `trait InferCtxtLike` and `trait SolverDelegate` |
| |
| These two traits correspond to the role of [`InferCtxt`][rustc inferctxt] in rustc. |
| |
| [`InferCtxtLike`][ir inferctxtlike] must be defined in `rustc_infer` due to coherence |
| constraints(orphan rules). |
| As a result, it cannot provide functionality that lives in `rustc_trait_selection`. |
| Instead, behavior that depends on trait-solving logic is abstracted into a separate trait, |
| [`SolverDelegate`][ir solverdelegate]. |
| Its implementator in rustc is [simply a newtype struct over `InferCtxt`][rustc solverdelegate impl] |
| in `rustc_trait_selection`. |
| |
| (In rust-analyzer, it is also implemented for a newtype wrapper over its own |
| [`InferCtxt`][r-a inferctxtlike impl], primarily to mirror rustc’s structure, although this is not |
| strictly necessary because all solver-related logic already resides in the `hir-ty` crate.) |
| |
| In the long term, the ideal design is to move all of the logic currently expressed through |
| `SolverDelegate` into `rustc_next_trait_solver`, with any required core operations added directly to |
| `InferCtxtLike`. |
| This would allow more of the solver’s behavior to live entirely inside the shared solver crate. |
| |
| ### `rustc_type_ir::search_graph::{Cx, Delegate}` |
| |
| The abstraction traits [`Cx`][ir searchgraph cx impl] and [`Delegate`][ir searchgraph delegate impl] |
| are already implemented within `rustc_next_trait_solver` itself. |
| Therefore, users of the shared crates—both rustc and rust-analyzer—do not need to provide their own |
| implementations. |
| |
| These traits exist primarily to support fuzzing of the search graph independently of the full trait |
| solver. |
| This infrastructure is used by the external fuzzing project: |
| <https://github.com/lcnr/search_graph_fuzz>. |
| |
| ## Long-term plans for supporting rust-analyzer |
| |
| In general, we aim to support rust-analyzer just as well as rustc in these shared crates—provided |
| doing so does not substantially harm rustc's performance or maintainability. |
| (e.g., [#145377][pr 145377], [#146111][pr 146111], [#146182][pr 146182] and [#147723][pr 147723]) |
| |
| Shared crates that require nightly-only features must guard such code behind a `nightly` feature |
| flag, since rust-analyzer is built with the stable toolchain. |
| |
| Looking forward, we plan to uplift more shared logic into `rustc_type_ir`. |
| There are still duplicated implementations between rustc and rust-analyzer—such as `ObligationCtxt` |
| ([rustc][rustc oblctxt], [rust-analyzer][r-a oblctxt]) and type coercion logic |
| ([rustc][rustc coerce], [rust-analyzer][r-a coerce])—that we would like to unify over time. |
| |
| [rustc-auto-publish]: https://github.com/rust-analyzer/rustc-auto-publish |
| [ir new_infer]: https://doc.rust-lang.org/1.91.1/nightly-rustc/rustc_type_ir/inherent/trait.Ty.html#tymethod.new_infer |
| [rustc new_infer]: https://github.com/rust-lang/rust/blob/63b1db05801271e400954e41b8600a3cf1482363/compiler/rustc_middle/src/ty/sty.rs#L413-L420 |
| [r-a new_infer]: https://github.com/rust-lang/rust-analyzer/blob/34f47d9298c478c12c6c4c0348771d1b05706e09/crates/hir-ty/src/next_solver/ty.rs#L59-L92 |
| [ir tr]: https://doc.rust-lang.org/1.91.1/nightly-rustc/rustc_type_ir/struct.TraitRef.html |
| [ir interner]: https://doc.rust-lang.org/1.91.1/nightly-rustc/rustc_type_ir/trait.Interner.html |
| [ir interner assocs]: https://doc.rust-lang.org/1.91.1/nightly-rustc/rustc_type_ir/trait.Interner.html#required-associated-types |
| [ir require_lang_item]: https://doc.rust-lang.org/1.91.1/nightly-rustc/rustc_type_ir/trait.Interner.html#tymethod.require_lang_item |
| [ir for_each_blanket_impl]: https://doc.rust-lang.org/1.91.1/nightly-rustc/rustc_type_ir/trait.Interner.html#tymethod.for_each_blanket_impl |
| [ir irprint]: https://doc.rust-lang.org/1.91.1/nightly-rustc/rustc_type_ir/ir_print/trait.IrPrint.html |
| [rustc interner impl]: https://doc.rust-lang.org/1.91.1/nightly-rustc/rustc_middle/ty/struct.TyCtxt.html#impl-Interner-for-TyCtxt%3C'tcx%3E |
| [r-a interner impl]: https://github.com/rust-lang/rust-analyzer/blob/a50c1ccc9cf3dab1afdc857a965a9992fbad7a53/crates/hir-ty/src/next_solver/interner.rs |
| [salsa]: https://github.com/salsa-rs/salsa |
| [ir inherent]: https://doc.rust-lang.org/1.91.1/nightly-rustc/rustc_type_ir/inherent/index.html |
| [rustc inherent impl]: https://doc.rust-lang.org/1.91.1/nightly-rustc/rustc_middle/ty/inherent/index.html |
| [r-a inherent impl]: https://github.com/rust-lang/rust-analyzer/blob/a50c1ccc9cf3dab1afdc857a965a9992fbad7a53/crates/hir-ty/src/next_solver/region.rs |
| [ir inferctxtlike]: https://doc.rust-lang.org/1.91.1/nightly-rustc/rustc_type_ir/trait.InferCtxtLike.html |
| [rustc inferctxt]: https://doc.rust-lang.org/1.91.1/nightly-rustc/rustc_infer/infer/struct.InferCtxt.html |
| [rustc inferctxtlike impl]: https://doc.rust-lang.org/1.91.1/nightly-rustc/src/rustc_infer/infer/context.rs.html#14-332 |
| [r-a inferctxtlike impl]: https://github.com/rust-lang/rust-analyzer/blob/a50c1ccc9cf3dab1afdc857a965a9992fbad7a53/crates/hir-ty/src/next_solver/infer/context.rs |
| [ir solverdelegate]: https://doc.rust-lang.org/1.91.1/nightly-rustc/rustc_next_trait_solver/delegate/trait.SolverDelegate.html |
| [rustc solverdelegate impl]: https://doc.rust-lang.org/1.91.1/nightly-rustc/rustc_trait_selection/solve/delegate/struct.SolverDelegate.html |
| [r-a solverdelegate impl]: https://github.com/rust-lang/rust-analyzer/blob/a50c1ccc9cf3dab1afdc857a965a9992fbad7a53/crates/hir-ty/src/next_solver/solver.rs#L27-L330 |
| [ir searchgraph cx impl]: https://doc.rust-lang.org/1.91.1/nightly-rustc/src/rustc_type_ir/interner.rs.html#550-575 |
| [ir searchgraph delegate impl]: https://doc.rust-lang.org/1.91.1/nightly-rustc/src/rustc_next_trait_solver/solve/search_graph.rs.html#20-123 |
| [pr 145377]: https://github.com/rust-lang/rust/pull/145377 |
| [pr 146111]: https://github.com/rust-lang/rust/pull/146111 |
| [pr 146182]: https://github.com/rust-lang/rust/pull/146182 |
| [pr 147723]: https://github.com/rust-lang/rust/pull/147723 |
| [rustc oblctxt]: https://github.com/rust-lang/rust/blob/63b1db05801271e400954e41b8600a3cf1482363/compiler/rustc_trait_selection/src/traits/engine.rs#L48-L386 |
| [r-a oblctxt]: https://github.com/rust-lang/rust-analyzer/blob/34f47d9298c478c12c6c4c0348771d1b05706e09/crates/hir-ty/src/next_solver/obligation_ctxt.rs |
| [rustc coerce]: https://github.com/rust-lang/rust/blob/63b1db05801271e400954e41b8600a3cf1482363/compiler/rustc_hir_typeck/src/coercion.rs |
| [r-a coerce]: https://github.com/rust-lang/rust-analyzer/blob/34f47d9298c478c12c6c4c0348771d1b05706e09/crates/hir-ty/src/infer/coerce.rs |