Chapter 16: Type Conversions in Rust

Type conversion is the act of changing a value’s data type so it can be interpreted or used differently. While C often employs automatic promotions and implicit casts, Rust avoids these by requiring explicit conversions. It provides various tools—such as the as keyword and the From, Into, TryFrom, and TryInto traits—that ensure conversions are safe, unambiguous, and clearly visible in your code.

This chapter explores Rust’s mechanisms for type conversions. We will discuss how to convert between standard library types, user-defined data structures, and strings, as well as how to perform low-level reinterpretations using transmute. We will also provide best practices and illustrate how tools like cargo clippy can help detect unnecessary or unsafe conversions.