Smart Pointers & Memory Layout Sandbox

Simulate reference counter manipulation in Box, Rc, Arc, dynamic interior mutability with RefCell, and reference cycle prevention using Weak pointers.

Smart Pointer Memory & Reference Counter Sandbox

Simulate heap allocation headers, atomic reference counters (Arc), and dynamic borrow tracking (RefCell).

Interactive Controls

Strong References (Rc::clone)

Active owners holding data

Weak References (Rc::downgrade)

Non-owning references

Rc<T> uses regular integers with zero atomic lock overhead (single-threaded only).

Heap Header Layout (0x6080)std::rc::RcBox<T>

Strong Count

Cell<usize>

Weak Count

Cell<usize>

Target Payload (T)

"High-Performance Rust Backend Service"

Size: 40 bytes on heap

Standard Smart Pointers Architectural Matrix

Pointer	Ownership	Thread Safety	Mutability	Runtime Cost
Box<T>	Unique (Single Owner)	Send + Sync (if T: Send + Sync)	Inherited from binding	Zero-cost (8B stack pointer)
Rc<T>	Shared (Ref-Counted)	!Send, !Sync (Single Thread)	Immutable	Cell increments (Non-atomic)
Arc<T>	Shared (Ref-Counted)	Send + Sync (Thread Safe)	Immutable	Atomic CPU fetch_add/sub
RefCell<T>	Interior Mutability	!Sync (Single Thread)	Dynamic runtime borrows	Borrow count integer check
Mutex<T>	Interior Mutability	Send + Sync (Multi Thread)	Exclusive Lock Guard	OS / Futex lock contention

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