The Challenges of Automatically Converting C to Rust: Why Memory Safety Isn't So Simple

Automatically converting C code to Rust faces fundamental challenges beyond syntax translation. While tools like C2Rust handle simple cases, pointer operations and manual memory management patterns require unsafe Rust, negating safety benefits. The core issue is a semantic mismatch between C's manual memory paradigm and Rust's ownership system. Lack of formal Rust semantics makes proving correctness difficult. Practical migration strategies focus on incremental adoption, prioritizing security-critical components, and architectural modernization rather than complete automated conversion.