rust/conversions.md

% 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. Needing to reinterpret those piles of bits as different types is a common problem and Rust consequently gives you several ways to do that.

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.

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 to do. For common conversions, rust provides more ergonomic alternatives.