ExternalPtr

ExternalPtr<T> is a Box-like owned pointer that wraps R’s EXTPTRSXP. It lets you hand ownership of Rust-allocated data to R and let R’s garbage collector decide when to drop it.

Source: miniextendr-api/src/externalptr.rs

🔗Why ExternalPtr Exists

R has no native way to hold arbitrary Rust data. EXTPTRSXP is R’s mechanism for storing opaque C pointers, but it provides no type safety, no RAII cleanup, and no protection against use-after-free. ExternalPtr<T> wraps EXTPTRSXP with:

• Type-safe access via TypedExternal trait and R symbol comparison
• Automatic cleanup via R GC finalizer that calls Drop
• Box-like API (Deref, DerefMut, Clone, into_inner, into_raw, pin, etc.)
• Thread-safe construction – new() routes R API calls to the main thread when called off-thread (e.g., with the worker-thread feature)

🔗When to Use ExternalPtr

Strategy	Lifetime	Use Case
ExternalPtr	Until R GCs	Rust data owned by R (structs returned to R)
ProtectScope	Within .Call	Temporary R allocations
Preserve list	Across .Calls	Long-lived R objects (not Rust values)

Use ExternalPtr when you want R to own a Rust value and drop it when R garbage-collects the pointer. This is the standard mechanism for exposing Rust structs to R code.

🔗Creating an ExternalPtr

🔗With #[derive(ExternalPtr)] (recommended)

The derive macro implements TypedExternal and IntoExternalPtr, so returning your struct from a #[miniextendr] function automatically wraps it:

#[derive(ExternalPtr)]
pub struct MyData {
    pub value: f64,
}

#[miniextendr]
pub fn create_data(v: f64) -> MyData {
    MyData { value: v }  // Automatically wrapped in ExternalPtr
}

🔗Manual construction

let ptr = ExternalPtr::new(MyData { value: 3.14 });

new() works from any thread – if called off the main thread (e.g., from the worker thread with the worker-thread feature), R API calls are automatically dispatched to the main thread via with_r_thread.

🔗Unchecked construction (ALTREP callbacks, main-thread-only code)

// SAFETY: must be on R's main thread
let ptr = unsafe { ExternalPtr::new_unchecked(MyData { value: 3.14 }) };

Skips thread safety assertions for performance-critical paths.

🔗From raw pointers

let raw = Box::into_raw(Box::new(MyData { value: 1.0 }));
// SAFETY: raw was allocated by Box, is non-null, caller transfers ownership
let ptr = unsafe { ExternalPtr::from_raw(raw) };

🔗Accessing the Value

ExternalPtr<T> implements Deref<Target = T> and DerefMut, so you can use it like a reference:

let ptr = ExternalPtr::new(MyData { value: 3.14 });
println!("{}", ptr.value);  // Deref to &MyData

Explicit access methods:

Method	Returns	Notes
as_ref()	Option<&T>	Always Some for valid ptrs
as_mut()	Option<&mut T>	Always Some for valid ptrs
as_ptr()	*const T	Raw pointer, no ownership transfer
as_sexp()	SEXP	The underlying R object

🔗Consuming and Dropping

Method	Effect
into_inner(this)	Moves value out, deallocates, neutralizes finalizer
into_raw(this)	Returns *mut T, neutralizes finalizer, caller owns memory
leak(this)	Returns &'a mut T, memory is never freed

R’s GC finalizer handles cleanup when the ExternalPtr goes out of scope in Rust without being explicitly consumed. The Rust Drop impl is a no-op to avoid double-free.

🔗Type Identification with TypedExternal

Every ExternalPtr<T> requires T: TypedExternal. This trait provides two identifiers stored in the SEXP:

• TYPE_NAME_CSTR – Short display name, stored in the tag slot (visible when printing in R)
• TYPE_ID_CSTR – Namespaced identifier (crate@version::module::Type), stored in prot[0] for type checking

Type checking uses R’s interned symbols (Rf_install), which enables fast pointer comparison rather than string comparison.

🔗Implementing TypedExternal

Via derive (recommended):

#[derive(ExternalPtr)]
pub struct MyData { /* ... */ }

Via macro:

impl_typed_external!(MyData);
// also works for generic types:
impl_typed_external!(MyWrapper<i32>);

Manually:

impl TypedExternal for MyData {
    const TYPE_NAME: &'static str = "MyData";
    const TYPE_NAME_CSTR: &'static [u8] = b"MyData\0";
    const TYPE_ID_CSTR: &'static [u8] =
        concat!(env!("CARGO_PKG_NAME"), "@", env!("CARGO_PKG_VERSION"),
                "::", module_path!(), "::MyData\0").as_bytes();
}

🔗Built-in TypedExternal Implementations

Source: miniextendr-api/src/externalptr_std.rs

The following standard library types have built-in TypedExternal impls, so they can be stored in ExternalPtr<T> without any manual implementation:

Category	Types
Primitives	bool, char, i8–i128, isize, u8–u128, usize, f32, f64
Strings	String, CString, OsString, PathBuf
Collections	Vec<T>, VecDeque<T>, LinkedList<T>, BinaryHeap<T>, HashMap<K,V>, BTreeMap<K,V>, HashSet<T>, BTreeSet<T>
Smart pointers	Box<T>, Box<[T]>, Rc<T>, Arc<T>, Cell<T>, RefCell<T>, UnsafeCell<T>, Mutex<T>, RwLock<T>, OnceLock<T>, Pin<T>, ManuallyDrop<T>, MaybeUninit<T>, PhantomData<T>
Option/Result	Option<T>, Result<T, E>
Ranges	Range<T>, RangeInclusive<T>, RangeFrom<T>, RangeTo<T>, RangeToInclusive<T>, RangeFull
I/O	File, BufReader<R>, BufWriter<W>, Cursor<T>
Time	Duration, Instant, SystemTime
Networking	TcpStream, TcpListener, UdpSocket, IpAddr, Ipv4Addr, Ipv6Addr, SocketAddr, SocketAddrV4, SocketAddrV6
Threading	Thread, JoinHandle<T>, Sender<T>, SyncSender<T>, Receiver<T>, Barrier, BarrierWaitResult
Atomics	AtomicBool, AtomicI8–AtomicI64, AtomicIsize, AtomicU8–AtomicU64, AtomicUsize
Numeric wrappers	NonZeroI8–NonZeroI128, NonZeroIsize, NonZeroU8–NonZeroU128, NonZeroUsize, Wrapping<T>, Saturating<T>
Tuples	(A,) through (A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L) (1–12 elements)
Arrays	[T; N] (const generic, any size)
Static slices	&'static [T], &'static mut [T]

Note on generic types: For generic types like Vec<T>, the type name does not include the type parameter (e.g., Vec<i32> and Vec<String> both have type name "Vec"). R-level type checking won’t distinguish between different instantiations. For stricter type safety, create a newtype wrapper and derive ExternalPtr.

Note on ManuallyDrop<T>: Shares T’s type symbols, allowing ExternalPtr<ManuallyDrop<T>> to interoperate with ExternalPtr<T>. This is safe because ManuallyDrop<T> is #[repr(transparent)].

Note on static slices: &'static [T] and &'static mut [T] are fat pointers (ptr + len) that satisfy 'static + Sized, so they can be stored directly in ExternalPtr. Use cases include const arrays (&DATA), leaked data (Box::leak), and memory-mapped files.

🔗IntoExternalPtr

The IntoExternalPtr marker trait triggers a blanket IntoR implementation that wraps the value in ExternalPtr<T> when returning from #[miniextendr] functions. #[derive(ExternalPtr)] implements both TypedExternal and IntoExternalPtr.

🔗Cross-Package Safety

The TYPE_ID_CSTR format (crate@version::module::Type) ensures:

• Same type from same crate+version: compatible (can share ExternalPtr)
• Same type name from different crates: incompatible (different crate prefix)
• Same type from different crate versions: incompatible (different version)

When wrapping a SEXP, wrap_sexp() compares the stored symbol pointer against the expected symbol pointer. A mismatch returns None (or TypeMismatchError from wrap_sexp_with_error).

For cross-package trait dispatch, see Trait ABI.

🔗Type-Erased Pointers (ErasedExternalPtr)

pub type ErasedExternalPtr = ExternalPtr<()>;

ErasedExternalPtr wraps any EXTPTRSXP without checking the stored type. Useful for:

• Inspecting the stored type name before downcasting
• Working with external pointers from unknown sources

let erased = unsafe { ErasedExternalPtr::from_sexp(some_sexp) };

// Check what type is stored
if erased.is::<MyData>() {
    let data: &MyData = erased.downcast_ref::<MyData>().unwrap();
}

// Or read the stored type name
if let Some(name) = erased.stored_type_name() {
    println!("stored type: {}", name);
}

Methods on ErasedExternalPtr:

Method	Returns
is::<T>()	bool – does the stored type match T?
downcast_ref::<T>()	Option<&T>
downcast_mut::<T>()	Option<&mut T>
stored_type_name()	Option<&'static str>

🔗ExternalSlice

ExternalSlice<T> stores a Vec<T> as a raw pointer + length + capacity, suitable for wrapping in ExternalPtr:

impl_typed_external!(ExternalSlice<f64>);

let data = vec![1.0, 2.0, 3.0];
let ptr = ExternalPtr::new(ExternalSlice::new(data));
assert_eq!(ptr.as_slice(), &[1.0, 2.0, 3.0]);

This is useful when you need R to own a Rust slice and access it by index (e.g., in ALTREP elt callbacks).

Method	Returns
new(vec)	Creates from Vec<T>
from_boxed(boxed)	Creates from Box<[T]>
as_slice()	&[T]
as_mut_slice()	&mut [T]
len() / is_empty()	Length queries

🔗ALTREP data1/data2 Helpers

ALTREP objects have two data slots (data1, data2). These helpers extract typed ExternalPtrs from those slots:

// In an ALTREP callback:
fn length(x: SEXP) -> R_xlen_t {
    match unsafe { altrep_data1_as::<MyAltrepData>(x) } {
        Some(ext) => ext.data.len() as R_xlen_t,
        None => 0,
    }
}

Function	Description
altrep_data1_as::<T>(x)	Extract data1 as ExternalPtr<T> with type check
altrep_data1_as_unchecked::<T>(x)	Same, skips thread safety assertions
altrep_data2_as::<T>(x)	Extract data2 as ExternalPtr<T> with type check
altrep_data2_as_unchecked::<T>(x)	Same, skips thread safety assertions
altrep_data1_mut::<T>(x)	Mutable &'static mut T reference from data1
altrep_data1_mut_unchecked::<T>(x)	Same, skips thread safety assertions

The _unchecked variants are for performance-critical ALTREP callbacks where you are guaranteed to be on the main thread.

🔗RSidecar (R Data Fields)

RSidecar is a zero-sized marker type that enables R-facing getter/setter generation for struct fields annotated with #[r_data]:

#[derive(ExternalPtr)]
pub struct MyType {
    pub x: i32,

    #[r_data]
    r: RSidecar,          // Enables R wrapper generation

    #[r_data]
    pub count: i32,       // Generates MyType_get_count() / MyType_set_count()

    #[r_data]
    pub name: String,     // Generates MyType_get_name() / MyType_set_name()
}

Only pub fields with #[r_data] get R wrapper functions. Supported field types: SEXP, i32, f64, bool, u8, and any type implementing IntoR.

🔗SEXP Layout

The internal layout of an ExternalPtr-created EXTPTRSXP:

EXTPTRSXP
  addr  → *mut T (heap-allocated Rust value)
  tag   → SYMSXP (TYPE_NAME_CSTR, for display)
  prot  → VECSXP[2]
            [0] → SYMSXP (TYPE_ID_CSTR, for type checking)
            [1] → user-protected SEXP (set via set_protected)

The prot slot holds a two-element list. Slot 0 is the namespaced type ID symbol for fast pointer-based type comparison. Slot 1 is available for user-protected R objects that should be kept alive alongside the pointer.

🔗Thread Safety

ExternalPtr is Send when T: Send, allowing it to be transferred between threads. All R API calls are serialized through the main thread. Concurrent access is not supported – R’s runtime is single-threaded.

🔗Trait Implementations

ExternalPtr<T> mirrors Box<T>’s trait implementations:

• Deref<Target = T> / DerefMut
• AsRef<T> / AsMut<T> / Borrow<T> / BorrowMut<T>
• Clone (deep clone, when T: Clone)
• Default (when T: Default)
• Debug / Display / Pointer
• PartialEq / Eq / PartialOrd / Ord / Hash (compare pointee values)
• Iterator / DoubleEndedIterator / ExactSizeIterator / FusedIterator
• From<T> / From<Box<T>>
• Pin support via pin(), pin_unchecked(), into_pin()