RefCell

RefCell allows accessing and mutating a wrapped value by providing alternative types Ref and RefMut that emulate &T/&mut T without actually being Rust references.

These types perform dynamic checks using a counter in the RefCell to prevent existence of a RefMut alongside another Ref/RefMut.

By implementing Deref (and DerefMut for RefMut), these types allow calling methods on the inner value without allowing references to escape.

// Copyright 2025 Google LLC
// SPDX-License-Identifier: Apache-2.0

use std::cell::RefCell;

fn main() {
    // Note that `cell` is NOT declared as mutable.
    let cell = RefCell::new(5);

    {
        let mut cell_ref = cell.borrow_mut();
        *cell_ref = 123;

        // This triggers an error at runtime.
        // let other = cell.borrow();
        // println!("{}", other);
    }

    println!("{cell:?}");
}