Without knowing enough about Rust to speak authoritatively... u8 can represent larger integers than i8 (no sign bit). Surely it's not completely safe.

`mem::transmute` is roughly equivalent to a `reinterpret_cast` in C++. It treats the bits of a u8 as an i8.

In the Rust definition of safety (mutable xor shared, no data races, memory safety, etc), treating the bits of a u8 as an i8 is safe and can be done with an `as` cast.

Thanks for clarifying that for me!

Hmmm. I was assuming this was just changing interpretations of the same underlying 8 bits. No?

Edit: yeah, “Casting between two integers of the same size (e.g. i32 -> u32) is a no-op” (https://doc.rust-lang.org/reference/expressions/operator-exp...)

Yup, fair enough.