use std::path::Path; fn main() { } #[derive(Copy, Clone, Debug)] struct CopyObject<'a> { pub val: &'a str, } struct AnObject { pub val: String, } struct TheOtherObject { pub val: Vec, } impl AnObject { // as_ borrowed (&self) -> borrowed (&[u8]) fn as_bytes(&self) -> &[u8] { // because the underlying data structure of a String is a Vec, the as_bytes actually just returns this as a borrowed value, really just making this a dumb proxy, but it shows us what we want: as_ is just a view into the underlying data structure: nothing is copied, nothing new is created, it only exposes the underlying data: free as in free beer because we are just returning something that point to something else: a reference self.val.as_bytes() } // to_ borrowed (&self) -> borrowed (&[u8]) fn to_guarded_bytes(&self) -> Option<&[u8]> { // this is really a dumb example, but it kind of proves the point: we convert our Target to a str. The input and output smells like the above as_ and the as_ is free, but this really isn't, because we are doing some expensive validation first let mut is_valid = true; for s in self.val.chars() { if s > 'b' && s < 'w' { is_valid = false; break; } } if is_valid { return Some(self.val.as_bytes()); } None } // to_ borrowed (&self) -> owned (TheOtherObject) (non-copy types) fn to_guarded_object(&self) -> Option { // This performs our previous check, and if everything is fine, it converts our object to the new object, simply creating it, and making some more to_ calls. Really expensive, but no copy is made of `self` let guarded_bytes = self.to_guarded_bytes(); match guarded_bytes { Some(bytes) => { Some(TheOtherObject {val: bytes.to_vec()}) }, None => None } } } impl<'a> CopyObject<'a> { // to_ owned (self) -> owned (TheOtherObject) (copy types) fn to_object(self) -> TheOtherObject { // because self is not a reference, it is actually not consumed (likewise it isn't consumed when we do a &self ... yes we could do a &self here, but it kind of defeats the purpose of doing the example), but it is copied. The copy itself though is more expensive than just doing a reference. In our example, we are actually being quite expensive doing a to_vec conversion of our free as_ view TheOtherObject { val: self.val.as_bytes().to_vec()} } } // into_ owned -> owned (non-copy types)