Low* buffer libraries¶

Immutable buffers¶

Immutable buffers are in LowStar.ImmutableBuffer and enjoy a recall axiom that allows bringing into scope the fact that the buffer still has the same contents as when it was created.

This is particularly useful for top-level constants. There are numerous examples of this in HACL*. Note that owing to some design choices, immutable buffers do NOT generate a const pointer in C.

Uninitialized buffers¶

In LowStar.UninitializedBuffer.

Const pointers¶

In order to manipulate const pointers, you can use LowStar.ConstPointer. It is represented as an abstract type distinct from regular, immutable, or unitialized buffers (all instances of the base monotonic buffer type). Having a separate abstract type allows identifiying const pointers as a separate, disjoint type at extraction, without requiring the built-in Low* checker in KaRaMeL to insert casts.

Injecting buffer or ibuffer into a const_buffer generates no casts in C, as the conversion from t* to const t* is implicit.

Projecting const_buffer to either buffer or ibuffer generates a cast.