Ep 265: C++20's std::bit_cast

Summary

This episode explores C++20's std::bit_cast, a new function that provides a safe and well-defined way to reinterpret the bit pattern of one type as another. Jason demonstrates how bit_cast replaces dangerous type-punning techniques and unsafe reinterpret_cast operations, while offering similar functionality to memcpy-based approaches but with constexpr support. He shows practical examples of converting between float and int representations and explains how bit_cast helps avoid strict aliasing violations and potential hardware faults from unaligned memory accesses.