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Introduce chapter for defining generic parameters
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BoxyUwU committed May 31, 2024
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7 changes: 5 additions & 2 deletions src/SUMMARY.md
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# Analysis

- [Prologue](./part-4-intro.md)
- [The `ty` module: representing types](./ty.md)
- [Generics and substitutions](./generics.md)
- [Generic parameter definitions](./generic_parameters_summary.md)
- [What is `ty::Generics`](./what_is_ty_generics.md)
- [Early vs Late bound parameters](./early-late-bound-params/early-late-bound-summary.md)
- [Implementation nuances of early/late bound parameters](./early-late-bound-params/early-late-bound-implementation-nuances.md)
- [Interactions with turbofishing](./early-late-bound-params/turbofishing-and-early-late-bound.md)
- [`TypeFolder` and `TypeFoldable`](./ty-fold.md)
- [Generic arguments](./generic_arguments.md)
- [Constants in the type system](./constants.md)
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7 changes: 7 additions & 0 deletions src/generic_parameters_summary.md
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# Generic parameter definitions

This chapter will discuss how rustc tracks what generic parameters are introduced by an item. For example given some struct defined via `struct Foo<T>` how does rustc track that `Foo` defines some type parameter `T` and nothing else?

This will *not* cover how we track generic parameters introduced via `for<'a>` syntax (i.e. in where clauses or `fn` types), which is covered elsewhere in the [chapter on `Binder`s ][ch_binders].

[ch_binders]: ./ty_module/binders.md
18 changes: 18 additions & 0 deletions src/what_is_ty_generics.md
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# What is `ty::Generics`

The generic parameters introduced by an item are tracked the [`ty::Generics`] struct. Sometimes items allows usage of generics of parent items inside of them, this is accomplished via the `ty::Generics` struct having an optional field to specify a parent item to inherit generic parameters of. For example given the following code:

```rust,ignore
trait Trait<T> {
fn foo<U>(&self);
}
```

The `ty::Generics` used for `foo` would contain `[U]` and a parent of `Some(Trait)`. `Trait` would have a `ty::Generics` containing `[Self, T]` with a parent of `None`.

The [`GenericParamDef`] struct is used to represent each individual generic parameter in a `ty::Generics` listing. The `GenericParamDef` struct contains information about the generic parameter, for example its name, defid, what kind of parameter it is (i.e. type, const, lifetime). It also contains a `u32` index representing what position the parameter is (starting from the outtermost parent).

Interestingly, `ty::Generics` does not currently contain _every_ generic parameter defined on an item. In the case of functions it only contains the _early bound_ lifetime parameters. See the next chapter for information on what "early bound" and "late bound" parameters are.

[`ty::Generics`]: https://doc.rust-lang.org/nightly/nightly-rustc/rustc_middle/ty/struct.Generics.html
[`GenericParamDef`]: https://doc.rust-lang.org/nightly/nightly-rustc/rustc_middle/ty/generics/struct.GenericParamDef.html

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