memcpy, memset, memcmp and friends in the D Runtime

[Mike]

On Wednesday, 9 April 2014 at 11:50:13 UTC, Daniel Murphy wrote:
> "Mike"  wrote in message 
> news:iflykgpsrmdbfhuwzqtp at forum.dlang.org...
>
>> So, my question remains:  If I'm porting D to a platform that 
>> has no C library, shouldn't a public, supported function that 
>> copies memory be added in the D Runtime?
>
> What platform doesn't have a C library?  And you can always 
> cast arrays to ubyte[] before assigning to avoid postblit.

My custom, bare-metal, D-only platform has no C library, nor will 
it ever.  And, Yes, I know I can cast, but should I?

memcpy is used quite often in Phobos.  Here's a small sample from 
std.array:

void trustedMemcopy(T[] dest, T[] src) @trusted
{
     assert(src.length == dest.length);
     if (!__ctfe)
         memcpy(dest.ptr, src.ptr, src.length * T.sizeof);
     else
     {
         dest[] = src[];
     }
}

You could ask the same question there, "Why isn't a cast used 
instead?" and remove the dependency on the C library.

So far, it seems D has only been used on one subset of computer 
systems that happen to have a C library, but some of us our 
trying to break some new ground with D.  I'm challenging the "D 
is only useful on PCs with a C library" bias and looking to see 
if D has the will to stand on its own two feet instead of leaning 
on C.