smart-pointers

Box<T> is Rust's simplest smart pointer: it allocates T on the heap and gives you ownership. When the Box goes out of scope, the heap memory is freed. I use Box when I need indirection (like recursive types), when moving large structs is expensi

Implementing Deref lets your type automatically coerce to its target type. For example, Box<T> derefs to T, and String derefs to str. This enables method calls and conversions without explicit unwrapping. I implement Deref for wrapper types and

When you need multiple ownership without threads, Rc<T> (reference counted) is the answer. It tracks the number of owners at runtime and frees the data when the count reaches zero. For mutability, combine it with RefCell<T>, which enforces