heapnotize

Dynamic data allocation on the stack. That's right, no heap needed. Well, that is a little stretch.

Everything below this line is just cheap talk outlining the future implementation, none of that is available.

In fact, this allows you to dedicate parts of stack as storage for maximum N of data types T.

What is this good for you ask. It allows you to live without heap, i.e. with #![no_std] and thus help with memory management on microcontrollers. It may be also useful for predictable memory requirements of your application.

Documentation:

• Repository (github.com)
• API reference (docs.rs)
• Analysis of the source code

Usage

Add this to your Cargo.toml:

[dependencies]
heapnotize = "1.0"

First of all, allocate space on the stack for N (8) items of your type T (i32):

let numbers = heapnotize::Rack8::<i32>::new()

Then we can add an item to this memory. The returned value will be a "pointer" on the stored value:

let number_pointer = numbers.add(10) // Unit<i32>

The value can be accessed as a reference:

let number_reference = number.as_ref() // &i32

A mutable reference:

let number_mutable_reference = number.as_mut_ref() // &mut i32

We can also use dereference to move the value out of its unit:

let number = *number // i32

When the value gets dereferenced or the unit gets out of scope, the memory will be freed.

We can read capacity of the Rack and number of currently occupied slots:

println!("numbers have currently occupied {} out of {} slots", numbers.used(), numbers.capacity())