[Style] Converting from char[] to string, to!string vs idup

[monarch_dodra]

On Tuesday, 25 March 2014 at 21:35:47 UTC, Mark Isaacson wrote:
> Is there a performance benefit? Is it simply because it's more 
> general?

Mostly because it's more generic. For example:
If instead you want to do "string" => "char[]", then your code 
will have to be changed to use "dup".
if instead you want to do char[] => dstring, then your code will 
simply not work at all.

By contrast, "to!" will "just work". It's "A one-stop shop for 
converting values from one type to another."

There is *1* thing you should take into account though: "to!" is 
a no-op for string=>string or char[]=>char[], or anything else 
that can be implicitly converted as such. In contrast, 
"dup"/"idup" will create an actual copy.

Not that this is good or bad. Just something you should keep in 
mind.