# Calling External Code

Functions from other languages might violate the guarantees of Rust. Calling
them is thus unsafe:

```rust,editable
extern "C" {
    fn abs(input: i32) -> i32;
}

fn main() {
    unsafe {
        // Undefined behavior if abs misbehaves.
        println!("Absolute value of -3 according to C: {}", abs(-3));
    }
}
```

<details>

This is usually only a problem for extern functions which do things with pointers which might
violate Rust's memory model, but in general any C function might have undefined behaviour under any
arbitrary circumstances.

The `"C"` in this example is the ABI;
[other ABIs are available too](https://doc.rust-lang.org/reference/items/external-blocks.html).

</details>