CXX Error Handling: QR Example

The QR code generator is an example where a boolean is used to communicate success vs failure, and where the successful result can be passed across the FFI boundary:

#[cxx::bridge(namespace = "qr_code_generator")]
mod ffi {
    extern "Rust" {
        fn generate_qr_code_using_rust(
            data: &[u8],
            min_version: i16,
            out_pixels: Pin<&mut CxxVector<u8>>,
            out_qr_size: &mut usize,
        ) -> bool;
    }
}

Students may be curious about the semantics of the out_qr_size output. This is not the size of the vector, but the size of the QR code (and admittedly it is a bit redundant - this is the square root of the size of the vector).

It may be worth pointing out the importance of initializing out_qr_size before calling into the Rust function. Creation of a Rust reference that points to uninitialized memory results in Undefined Behavior (unlike in C++, when only the act of dereferencing such memory results in UB).

If students ask about Pin, then explain why CXX needs it for mutable references to C++ data: the answer is that C++ data can’t be moved around like Rust data, because it may contain self-referential pointers.