Rust Reflection: The Tug-of-War Between Safety and Access Rules

Rust lacks reflection, a feature many developers desire. This article delves into the safety challenges of implementing reflection in Rust. Due to Rust's memory safety guarantees, a reflection API must adhere to strict access rules, preventing arbitrary access to private fields to avoid memory safety vulnerabilities. The author explores how these limitations impact reflection API design, such as handling reflection failures and expressing complex reflection bounds. The trade-offs between safe and unsafe reflection APIs are also discussed, along with balancing functionality and security. Ultimately, creating a safe reflection mechanism in Rust is a complex and challenging problem requiring careful consideration of various factors.