as casts are fundamentally different from From conversions. From conversions are “simple and safe” whereas as casts are purely “safe”. When considering numeric types, From conversions exist only when the output is guaranteed to be the same, i.e. there is no loss of information (no truncation or flooring or loss of precision). as casts, however, do not have this limitation.
Quoting the docs,
The size of [
usize] is “how many bytes it takes to reference any location in memory. For example, on a 32 bit target, this is 4 bytes and on a 64 bit target, this is 8 bytes.”
Since the size depends on the target architecture and cannot be determined before compilation, there is no guarantee that a From conversion between a numeric type and usize is possible. An as cast, however, will always operate by the rules listed here.
For instance, on a 32-bit system, usize is equivalent to u32. Since a usize is smaller than a u64, there can be loss of information (truncation) when converting a u64 into a usize and hence a From conversion cannot exist. However, the size of a usize is always guaranteed to be 8 bits or greater and a u8 to usize From conversion will always exist.