Discussion on offset_of!(..)

2

My proposed library-only implementation (to live in libcore):

macro_rules! offset_of {
    ($Struct:path, $field:ident) => ({
        // Using a separate function to minimize unhygienic hazards
        // (e.g. unsafety of #[repr(packed)] field borrows).
        // Uncomment `const` when `const fn`s can juggle pointers.
        /*const*/ fn offset() -> usize {
            let u = $crate::mem::MaybeUninit::<$Struct>::uninitialized();
            // Use pattern-matching to avoid accidentally going through Deref.
            let &$Struct { $field: ref f, .. } = unsafe { &*u.as_ptr() };
            let o = (f as *const _ as usize).wrapping_sub(&u as *const _ as usize);
            // Triple check that we are within `u` still.
            assert!((0..=$crate::mem::size_of_val(&u)).contains(&o));
            o
        }
        offset()
    })
}

Also to quote myself on implementing offset_of! like asm!:

I dislike having macros that expand to builtins that cannot be written with other syntax

(I really hope one day we can solve the asm issue - const generics + intrinsics is probably the way to go)

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