[patterns.ref.info] unclear wording: "and, thus, borrow them"

[jofas]

The first sentence of [patterns.ref.info] states (my emphasis):

Reference patterns dereference the pointers that are being matched and, thus, borrow them.

The emphasised part reads a bit confusing to me and I'm still unsure what is meant by it. Maybe it could be clarified? Or omitted? I can't find similar terminology in the FLS.

The URLO topic that raised the issue:

https://users.rust-lang.org/t/discussing-reference-patterns/130495?u=jofas

[fiveseven-lambda]

The phrase "borrow them" made me think of let (ref x, ref y) = tuple;, which feels like a different kind of borrowing than what's happening in &x patterns. Clarifying that would help.

[iampi31415]

Comes from this PR; I traced it back to original developer to see whether there were intermediate steps, but that line appears as it is, and was never modified.

---

The text seems to conflate that the &-pattern dereferences and also borrows, but as the FLS says, it only dereferences:

A reference pattern is a pattern that dereferences a pointer that is being matched.

Matching a String under & would move it, so it fails:

fn main() {
    let s = "s".to_owned();
    let s_ref = &s;
    let &nope = s_ref;
}