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The Deref Trait

Implementing Deref lets a wrapper type hand out a reference to its inner value via the * operator, and deref coercion automatically converts &Box<T> to &T or &String to &str at call sites. This is what makes smart pointers ergonomic to use as if they were plain references.

Questions this Concept answers

Why can a lock guard be used as though it were the locked value itself?

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The Deref Trait for Smart Pointers in Rust

The Deref trait in Rust lets a custom type customize the behavior of the dereference operator, allowing smart pointers (types that own or point to data) to be treated like ordinary references: implem…