> but five function calls (from_ptr, from_utf8, to_bytes, unwrap, to_string) just to convert a C string to a Rust string seems like an excessive amount of cerem

> but five function calls (from_ptr, from_utf8, to_bytes, unwrap, to_string) just to convert a C string to a Rust string seems like an excessive amount of ceremony Well, only the first four are really needed. The last one turns it into a local, growable copy. The rest should probably get a convenience wrapper, though. > the libxls API has an array-of-structs in a few places [...]; because Rust doesn’t believe in pointer arithmetic, I found myself manually writing the pointer arithmetic logic Forgive me if I'm being stupid, but can't you just use slice.from_raw_parts? https://doc.rust-lang.org/std/slice/fn.from_raw_parts.html https://doc.rust-lang.org/std/slice/fn.from_raw_parts.html > writing things in a pseudo-functional, lots-of-chained-method-calls style, for which Rust is not all that well-designed If this is about speed, then see the other comments. But if this is for another reason, what reason is it? Personally this style of programming suits Rust beautifully.