Self-Referential Buffer Example

A “self-referential buffer” is a type that has a reference to one of its own fields:

// Copyright 2026 Google LLC
// SPDX-License-Identifier: Apache-2.0

pub struct SelfReferentialBuffer {
    data: [u8; 1024],
    cursor: *mut u8,
}

This kind of structure is not typical in Rust, because there’s no way to update the cursor’s address when instances of SelfReferentialBuffer move.

However, this kind of setup is more natural in other languages that provide garbage collection, and also C++ that allows users to define their own behavior during moves and copies.

Outline

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