byte* and int length -> byte[]

[Steven Schveighoffer]

On Mon, 15 Aug 2011 13:16:54 -0400, mimocrocodil <4denizzz at gmail.com>  
wrote:

> I obtain immutable(byte)* and int where contained length of bytes block  
> from C library.
>
> Can I convert this into byte[] without explict copying etc.
>
> Something like:
>
> byte* p; // bytes
> int size; // size of bytes block
>
> byte[] b;
> b.length = size;
> b.ptr = p;
>
> // now b contains bytes from library

It's even easier:

auto b = p[0..size]; // b is of type byte[]

I.e. you can use a slice operation on a pointer to create a  
correctly-typed slice.

Keep in mind, the size is the number of *elements* for the slice, not the  
number of *bytes*.  In your case it happens to be identical, but for  
larger element types it would be different.

-Steve