Need holistic explanation about Rust's cell and reference counted types

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There are several wrapper types in the Rust standard library:

As I understand it, these are wrappers which provide further possibilities than a simple reference. While I understand some basics, I cannot see the whole picture.

What do they do exactly? Do cells and reference-counted families provide orthogonal or similar features?

rust
2 Answers

Thanks to Matthieu's good answer, here is a diagram to help people to find the wrapper they need:

+-----------+
| Ownership |
+--+--------+                              +================+
   |                         +-Static----->| T              |(1)
   |                         |             +================+
   |                         |
   |                         |             +================+
   |          +-----------+  | Local    Val| Cell<T>        |(1)
   +-Unique-->| Borrowing +--+-Dynamic---->|----------------|
   |          +-----------+  |          Ref| RefCell<T>     |(1)
   |                         |             +================+
   |                         |
   |                         |             +================+
   |                         | Threaded    | AtomicT        |(2)
   |                         +-Dynamic---->|----------------|
   |                                       | Mutex<T>       |(1)
   |                                       | RwLock<T>      |(1)
   |                                       +================+
   |
   |
   |                                       +================+
   |                         +-No--------->| Rc<T>          |
   |                         |             +================+
   | Locally  +-----------+  |
   +-Shared-->| Mutable?  +--+             +================+
   |          +-----------+  |          Val| Rc<Cell<T>>    |
   |                         +-Yes-------->|----------------|
   |                                    Ref| Rc<RefCell<T>> |
   |                                       +================+
   |
   |
   |                                       +================+
   |                         +-No--------->| Arc<T>         |
   |                         |             +================+
   | Shared   +-----------+  |
   +-Between->| Mutable?  +--+             +================+
     Threads  +-----------+  |             | Arc<AtomicT>   |(2)
                             +-Yes-------->|----------------|
                                           | Arc<Mutex<T>>  |
                                           | Arc<RwLock<T>> |
                                           +================+
  1. In those cases, T can be replaced with Box<T>
  2. Use AtomicT when T is a bool or a number

To know if you should use Mutex or RwLock, see this related question.

user_44988310
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