What is the difference between clone and to_owned?
And when should you use one over the other?
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ToOwned is more flexible, implemented for all T: Clone and a few extras. You can also use to_owned on unsized types that don't implement Clone but do have a related "owned" type, like str to String and [T] to Vec<T>. But if you're just going from a borrowed &T to an owned T, I'd stick to clone.
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(What cuviper said is correct, so feel free to ignore what I'm about to say.)
I like to think of .clone() as "I already have a T, and I'd like another one" whereas I think of .to_owned() as "I have something borrowed, and I want to make an owned copy so I can mess with it". So I'd do let x: T = ...; let y: T = x.clone(); but let x: &T = ...; let y: T = x.to_owned();.
But that might just be my brain being weird. Technically the input to clone is also borrowed, so the distinction is only stylistic.
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