Appendix: Glossary - The Rust Reference

# Glossary

### Abstract Syntax Tree

An ‘abstract syntax tree’, or ‘AST’, is an intermediate representation of the structure of the program when the compiler is compiling it.

### Alignment

The alignment of a value specifies what addresses values are preferred to start at. Always a power of two. References to a value must be aligned. More.

### Arity

Arity refers to the number of arguments a function or operator takes. For some examples, `f(2, 3)` and `g(4, 6)` have arity 2, while `h(8, 2, 6)` has arity 3. The `!` operator has arity 1.

### Array

An array, sometimes also called a fixed-size array or an inline array, is a value describing a collection of elements, each selected by an index that can be computed at run time by the program. It occupies a contiguous region of memory.

### Associated Item

An associated item is an item that is associated with another item. Associated items are defined in implementations and declared in traits. Only functions, constants, and type aliases can be associated.

### Bound

Bounds are constraints on a type or trait. For example, if a bound is placed on the argument a function takes, types passed to that function must abide by that constraint.

### Combinator

Combinators are higher-order functions that apply only functions and earlier defined combinators to provide a result from its arguments. They can be used to manage control flow in a modular fashion.

### Dispatch

Dispatch is the mechanism to determine which specific version of code is actually run when it involves polymorphism. Two major forms of dispatch are static dispatch and dynamic dispatch. While Rust favors static dispatch, it also supports dynamic dispatch through a mechanism called ‘trait objects’.

### Dynamically Sized Type

A dynamically sized type (DST) is a type without a statically known size or alignment.

### Expression

An expression is a combination of values, constants, variables, operators and functions that evaluate to a single value, with or without side-effects.

For example, `2 + (3 * 4)` is an expression that returns the value 14.

### Initialized

A variable is initialized if it has been assigned a value and hasn't since been moved from. All other memory locations are assumed to be initialized. Only unsafe Rust can create such a memory without initializing it.

### Nominal Types

Types that can be referred to by a path directly. Specifically enums, structs, unions, and trait objects.

### Object Safe Traits

Traits that can be used as trait objects. Only traits that follow specific rules are object safe.

### Prelude

Prelude, or The Rust Prelude, is a small collection of items - mostly traits - that are imported into every module of every crate. The traits in the prelude are pervasive.

### Size

The size of a value has two definitions.

The first is that it is how much memory must be allocated to store that value.

The second is that it is the offset in bytes between successive elements in an array with that item type.

It is a multiple of the alignment, including zero. The size can change depending on compiler version (as new optimizations are made) and target platform (similar to how `usize` varies per-platform).

More.

### Slice

A slice is dynamically-sized view into a contiguous sequence, written as `[T]`.

It is often seen in its borrowed forms, either mutable or shared. The shared slice type is `&[T]`, while the mutable slice type is `&mut [T]`, where `T` represents the element type.

### Statement

A statement is the smallest standalone element of a programming language that commands a computer to perform an action.

### String literal

A string literal is a string stored directly in the final binary, and so will be valid for the `'static` duration.

Its type is `'static` duration borrowed string slice, `&'static str`.

### String slice

A string slice is the most primitive string type in Rust, written as `str`. It is often seen in its borrowed forms, either mutable or shared. The shared string slice type is `&str`, while the mutable string slice type is `&mut str`.

Strings slices are always valid UTF-8.

### Trait

A trait is a language item that is used for describing the functionalities a type must provide. It allows a type to make certain promises about its behavior.

Generic functions and generic structs can use traits to constrain, or bound, the types they accept.