Vec off arrays (or slices)

vec_of_array.md

The most technically-correct answer to that question: make a Vec of references:

array.iter_mut().collect::<Vec<_>>();

no cloning involved, and you have a Vec.

In practice, however, it's gonna be lifetime-bound (Vec<&mut T> or Vec<&T> if using .iter()). Hence the following more useful answer, but it may involve cloning or other stuff:

To avoid extra lifetime/borrowing restrictions, you'll need to have owned values in the resulting Vec. For that, you:

• either go from T -> T, by moving, e.g.,

  ::std::array::IntoIter::new(array) // does not work for slices because of lack of `&own` references.
      .collect::<Vec<_>>()

• or &T -> T, by cloning, e.g.,

  array.iter() // works for slices
      .cloned()
      .collect::<Vec<_>>()

• or &mut T -> T, by taking / replacing, e.g.,

  array.iter_mut() // works for slices
      .map(|it| mem::take(it)) // or .map(|it| mem::replace(it, somme_dummy))
      .collect::<Vec<_>>()

You can support moving with slices if it was behind a Box:

let _: Box<[T]> = boxed_slice;
Vec::from(boxed_slice)