How to Use Raw Pointers in Rust

Unsafe Ffi

2026-04-17T12:05:42+00:00

Use raw pointers in Rust by declaring `*const T` or `*mut T` and accessing them inside an `unsafe` block to bypass safety checks.

Use raw pointers in Rust by declaring them as *const T or *mut T inside an unsafe block to bypass the borrow checker. Raw pointers do not own data and must be explicitly dereferenced with * or converted to safe references using & or &mut within unsafe code.

fn main() {
    let mut num = 5;
    let r1 = &num as *const i32;
    let r2 = &mut num as *mut i32;
    unsafe {
        println!("r1: {}", *r1);
        *r2 += 1;
        println!("r2: {}", *r2);
    }
}