November 03, 2023
https://issues.dlang.org/show_bug.cgi?id=24225

          Issue ID: 24225
           Summary: @safe cast from base type to enum bypasses copy ctor,
                    identity opAssign
           Product: D
           Version: D2
          Hardware: All
                OS: All
            Status: NEW
          Severity: normal
          Priority: P1
         Component: dmd
          Assignee: nobody@puremagic.com
          Reporter: snarwin+bugzilla@gmail.com

Enum types in D always have trivial copy and assignment operations, regardless of their base type. Normally this is ok, because enum members are required to be compile-time constants, and cannot own any resources that require lifetime management at runtime.

However, this means that casting a value from the base type to the enum type allows any user-defined copy constructors and assignment operators (including @disabled ones) to be completely bypassed.

Currently, this is allowed in @safe code, as the example program below demonstrates:

---
import std.stdio;

struct UniqueInt
{
    @system int n;

    this(int n) @safe
    {
        writefln("Construct UniqueInt(%d)", n);
        this.n = n;
    }

    @disable this(ref inout UniqueInt) inout;

    ~this() @trusted
    {
        writefln("Destroy UniqueInt(%d)", this.n);
        this.n = 0;
    }
}

enum E : UniqueInt { _ = UniqueInt.init }

void main() @safe
{
    import core.lifetime;

    UniqueInt n = 12345;
    E en = cast(E) n;
    UniqueInt n2 = move(en);
}
---

When compiled (with -preview=systemVariables) and run, it produces the
following output:

---
Construct UniqueInt(12345)
Destroy UniqueInt(12345)
Destroy UniqueInt(12345)
Destroy UniqueInt(12345)
---

The same UniqueInt is destroyed 3 times, even though only one instance is ever constructed.

To prevent @safe code from bypassing user-defined assignment and copy operations, which may be relied on to maintain an object's safety invariants, casting from an enum's base type to the enum type should be made @system.

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