How do I convert between numeric types safely and idiomatically?

Editor's note: This question is from a version of Rust prior to 1.0 and references some items that are not present in Rust 1.0. The answers still contain valuable information.

What's the idiomatic way to convert from (say) a usize to a u32?

For example, casting using 4294967295us as u32 works and the Rust 0.12 reference docs on type casting say

A numeric value can be cast to any numeric type. A raw pointer value can be cast to or from any integral type or raw pointer type. Any other cast is unsupported and will fail to compile.

but 4294967296us as u32 will silently overflow and give a result of 0.

I found ToPrimitive and FromPrimitive which provide nice functions like to_u32() -> Option, but they're marked as unstable:

#[unstable(feature = "core", reason = "trait is likely to be removed")]

What's the idiomatic (and safe) way to convert between numeric (and pointer) types?

The platform-dependent size of isize / usize is one reason why I'm asking this question - the original scenario was I wanted to convert from u32 to usize so I could represent a tree in a Vec (e.g. let t = Vec![0u32, 0u32, 1u32], then to get the grand-parent of node 2 would be t[t[2us] as usize]), and I wondered how it would fail if usize was less than 32 bits.

Converting values
From a type that fits completely within another

There's no problem here. Use the From trait to be explicit that there's no loss occurring:

fn example(v: i8) -> i32 {
    i32::from(v) // or v.into()
}

You could choose to use as, but it's recommended to avoid it when you don't need it (see below):

fn example(v: i8) -> i32 {
    v as i32
}

From a type that doesn't fit completely in another

There isn't a single method that makes general sense - you are asking how to fit two things in a space meant for one. One good initial attempt is to use an Option — Some when the value fits and None otherwise. You can then fail your program or substitute a default value, depending on your needs.

Since Rust 1.34, you can use TryFrom:

use std::convert::TryFrom;

fn example(v: i32) -> Option {
    i8::try_from(v).ok()
}

Before that, you'd have to write similar code yourself:

fn example(v: i32) -> Option {
    if v > std::i8::MAX as i32 {
        None
    } else {
        Some(v as i8)
    }
}

From a type that may or may not fit completely within another

The range of numbers isize / usize can represent changes based on the platform you are compiling for. You'll need to use TryFrom regardless of your current platform.

See also:

• How do I convert a usize to a u32 using TryFrom?

• Why is type conversion from u64 to usize allowed using as but not From?

What as does

but 4294967296us as u32 will silently overflow and give a result of 0

When converting to a smaller type, as just takes the lower bits of the number, disregarding the upper bits, including the sign:

fn main() {
    let a: u16 = 0x1234;
    let b: u8 = a as u8;
    println!("0x{:04x}, 0x{:02x}", a, b); // 0x1234, 0x34

    let a: i16 = -257;
    let b: u8 = a as u8;
    println!("0x{:02x}, 0x{:02x}", a, b); // 0xfeff, 0xff
}

See also:

• What is the difference between From::from and as in Rust?

About ToPrimitive / FromPrimitive

RFC 369, Num Reform, states:

Ideally [...] ToPrimitive [...] would all be removed in favor of a more principled way of working with C-like enums

In the meantime, these traits live on in the num crate:

• ToPrimitive

• FromPrimitive

Stack Overflow Q#28273169, score: 234