# Lints

This page documents some of the machinery around lint registration and how we
run lints in the compiler.

The [`LintStore`] is the central piece of infrastructure, around which
everything rotates. It's not available during the early parts of compilation
(i.e., before TyCtxt) in most code, as we need to fill it in with all of the
lints, which can only happen after plugin registration.

## Lints vs. lint passes

There are two parts to the linting mechanism within the compiler: lints and
lint passes. Unfortunately, a lot of the documentation we have refers to both
of these as just "lints."

First, we have the lint declarations themselves: this is where the name and
default lint level and other metadata come from. These are normally defined by
way of the [`declare_lint!`] macro, which boils down to a static with type
[`&rustc_lint_defs::Lint`].

First, we have the lint declarations themselves,
and this is where the name and default lint level and other metadata come from.
These are normally defined by way of the [`declare_lint!`] macro,
which boils down to a static with type [`&rustc_lint_defs::Lint`]
(although this may change in the future,
as the macro is somewhat unwieldy to add new fields to,
like all macros).

As of <!-- date-check --> Aug 2022,
we lint against direct declarations without the use of the macro.

Lint declarations don't carry any "state" - they are merely global identifiers
and descriptions of lints. We assert at runtime that they are not registered
twice (by lint name).

Lint passes are the meat of any lint. Notably, there is not a one-to-one
relationship between lints and lint passes; a lint might not have any lint pass
that emits it, it could have many, or just one -- the compiler doesn't track
whether a pass is in any way associated with a particular lint, and frequently
lints are emitted as part of other work (e.g., type checking, etc.).

## Registration

### High-level overview

In [`rustc_interface::register_plugins`],
the [`LintStore`] is created,
and all lints are registered.

There are four 'sources' of lints:

* internal lints: lints only used by the rustc codebase
* builtin lints: lints built into the compiler and not provided by some outside
  source
* plugin lints: lints created by plugins through the plugin system.
* `rustc_interface::Config`[`register_lints`]: lints passed into the compiler
  during construction

Lints are registered via the [`LintStore::register_lint`] function. This should
happen just once for any lint, or an ICE will occur.

Once the registration is complete, we "freeze" the lint store by placing it in
an `Lrc`. Later in the driver, it's passed into the `GlobalCtxt` constructor
where it lives in an immutable form from then on.

Lint passes are registered separately into one of the categories
(pre-expansion, early, late, late module). Passes are registered as a closure
-- i.e., `impl Fn() -> Box<dyn X>`, where `dyn X` is either an early or late
lint pass trait object. When we run the lint passes, we run the closure and
then invoke the lint pass methods. The lint pass methods take `&mut self` so
they can keep track of state internally.

#### Internal lints

These are lints used just by the compiler or plugins like `clippy`. They can be
found in `rustc_lint::internal`.

An example of such a lint is the check that lint passes are implemented using
the `declare_lint_pass!` macro and not by hand. This is accomplished with the
`LINT_PASS_IMPL_WITHOUT_MACRO` lint.

Registration of these lints happens in the [`rustc_lint::register_internals`]
function which is called when constructing a new lint store inside
[`rustc_lint::new_lint_store`].

### Builtin Lints

These are primarily described in two places,
`rustc_lint_defs::builtin` and `rustc_lint::builtin`.
Often the first provides the definitions for the lints themselves,
and the latter provides the lint pass definitions (and implementations),
but this is not always true.

The builtin lint registration happens in
the [`rustc_lint::register_builtins`] function.
Just like with internal lints,
this happens inside of [`rustc_lint::new_lint_store`].

#### Plugin lints

This is one of the primary use cases remaining for plugins/drivers. Plugins are
given access to the mutable `LintStore` during registration (which happens
inside of [`rustc_interface::register_plugins`]) and they can call any
functions they need on the `LintStore`, just like rustc code.

Plugins are intended to declare lints with the `plugin` field set to true
(e.g., by way of the [`declare_tool_lint!`] macro), but this is purely for
diagnostics and help text; otherwise plugin lints are mostly just as first
class as rustc builtin lints.

#### Driver lints

These are the lints provided by drivers via the `rustc_interface::Config`
[`register_lints`] field, which is a callback. Drivers should, if finding it
already set, call the function currently set within the callback they add. The
best way for drivers to get access to this is by overriding the
`Callbacks::config` function which gives them direct access to the `Config`
structure.

## Compiler lint passes are combined into one pass

Within the compiler, for performance reasons, we usually do not register dozens
of lint passes. Instead, we have a single lint pass of each variety (e.g.,
`BuiltinCombinedModuleLateLintPass`) which will internally call all of the
individual lint passes; this is because then we get the benefits of static over
dynamic dispatch for each of the (often empty) trait methods.

Ideally, we'd not have to do this, since it adds to the complexity of
understanding the code. However, with the current type-erased lint store
approach, it is beneficial to do so for performance reasons.

[`LintStore`]: https://doc.rust-lang.org/nightly/nightly-rustc/rustc_lint/struct.LintStore.html
[`LintStore::register_lint`]: https://doc.rust-lang.org/nightly/nightly-rustc/rustc_lint/struct.LintStore.html#method.register_lints
[`rustc_interface::register_plugins`]: https://doc.rust-lang.org/nightly/nightly-rustc/rustc_interface/passes/fn.register_plugins.html
[`rustc_lint::register_builtins`]: https://doc.rust-lang.org/nightly/nightly-rustc/rustc_lint/fn.register_builtins.html
[`rustc_lint::register_internals`]: https://doc.rust-lang.org/nightly/nightly-rustc/rustc_lint/fn.register_internals.html
[`rustc_lint::new_lint_store`]: https://doc.rust-lang.org/nightly/nightly-rustc/rustc_lint/fn.new_lint_store.html
[`declare_lint!`]: https://doc.rust-lang.org/nightly/nightly-rustc/rustc_session/macro.declare_lint.html
[`declare_tool_lint!`]: https://doc.rust-lang.org/nightly/nightly-rustc/rustc_session/macro.declare_tool_lint.html
[`register_lints`]: https://doc.rust-lang.org/nightly/nightly-rustc/rustc_interface/interface/struct.Config.html#structfield.register_lints
[`&rustc_lint_defs::Lint`]: https://doc.rust-lang.org/nightly/nightly-rustc/rustc_lint_defs/struct.Lint.html
