`==` expression with unsafe block on left-hand side fails to parse

[jmagnuson]

I tried this code (playground):

unsafe fn foo() -> usize {
    0
}

fn foo_wrapper() -> bool {
    // Fails to compile
    unsafe { foo() } == 0
    
    // OK
    // unsafe { foo() }.eq(&0)
}

fn main() {
    let maybe = foo_wrapper();
    
    println!("{}", maybe);
}

I expected to see this happen: The result of foo() would return from the unsafe block and be compared to 0.

Instead, this happened: Compilation failed because the parser wanted type () instead of the expected usize for comparison to 0.

error: expected expression, found `==`
 --> src/main.rs:7:22
  |
7 |     unsafe { foo() } == 0
  |                      ^^ expected expression

error[E0308]: mismatched types
 --> src/main.rs:7:14
  |
7 |     unsafe { foo() } == 0
  |              ^^^^^- help: try adding a semicolon: `;`
  |              |
  |              expected `()`, found `usize`

error: aborting due to 2 previous errors

For more information about this error, try `rustc --explain E0308`.

Incidentally, compilation is successful if the unsafe block is instead on the right-hand side:

0 == unsafe { foo() }

Meta

rustc --version --verbose:

rustc 1.45.0 (5c1f21c3b 2020-07-13)
binary: rustc
commit-hash: 5c1f21c3b82297671ad3ae1e8c942d2ca92e84f2
commit-date: 2020-07-13
host: x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu
release: 1.45.0
LLVM version: 10.0

(the behavior is identical with 1.46.0-beta.2 and 1.47.0-nightly compilers)

[ehuss]

I don't think this has anything to do with being unsafe in particular. Any block-style expression in the last expression statement of a block cannot have braces (particularly as the first expression of a compound expression). For example, {{1}==0} doesn't parse. Some more details are at rust-lang/reference#569.

I don't know if this is particularly intended, or if it is fixable. There is ambiguity in some circumstances (like if condition expressions), but it doesn't seem like there is any particular ambiguity as the tail of a block.

[Lonami]

Recently I needed this but in my case it suggested me to wrap the block inside (), as in:

(unsafe { ... }) != 0

Maybe I had an older compiler or I tried other things for the suggestion to appear.

[LeSeulArtichaut]

Related to #54482/#7909?