| # Type Conversions |
| |
| At the end of the day, everything is just a pile of bits somewhere, and type |
| systems are just there to help us use those bits right. There are two common |
| problems with typing bits: needing to reinterpret those exact bits as a |
| different type, and needing to change the bits to have equivalent meaning for |
| a different type. Because Rust encourages encoding important properties in the |
| type system, these problems are incredibly pervasive. As such, Rust |
| consequently gives you several ways to solve them. |
| |
| First we'll look at the ways that Safe Rust gives you to reinterpret values. |
| The most trivial way to do this is to just destructure a value into its |
| constituent parts and then build a new type out of them. e.g. |
| |
| ```rust |
| struct Foo { |
| x: u32, |
| y: u16, |
| } |
| |
| struct Bar { |
| a: u32, |
| b: u16, |
| } |
| |
| fn reinterpret(foo: Foo) -> Bar { |
| let Foo { x, y } = foo; |
| Bar { a: x, b: y } |
| } |
| ``` |
| |
| But this is, at best, annoying. For common conversions, Rust provides |
| more ergonomic alternatives. |
