Why the unsafe pointer reference?

[coolaj86]

base62/base62.go

Line 222 in 9b9fb35

return *(*string)(unsafe.Pointer(&b))

Wouldn't this be the same as return string(bytes) and return []byte(str)?

[jxskiss]

This is a common unsafe trick, it avoids unnecessary memory allocation.

[coolaj86]

Hmm... I didn't realize that sort of casting would reallocate. I always assumed it was Copy-on-Write.