Does anybody have an example of overloading a function to accept char[] or string parameter

[Gary Miller]

In a lot of my string manipulation functions I need the 
flexibility of passing a string but other times I need to pass a 
char[] so that I can change the contents of the string in the 
function.  Because the string data type is immutable I get errors 
if I pass it as a parameter and try to change it in the function.

Can I overload a function to work for either a char[] or a string?

Many of the library functions that I need to call require string 
arguments such as the replace below.

I believe I can create a wrapper function for it like this to 
still get at the functionality. But this seems like a lot of work 
for every function.

I'm almost sorry that the the string datatype was created because 
then probably all the library string handling would have been 
written for char[].

Are there any alternate libraries for D that have a mutable 
string datatype or is there a way to override the immutable 
characteristic of the string datatype by reallocating it or 
something?

I realize that the reduced memory reallocation in string handling 
is probably a major reason that D is faster than other more 
dynamic languages like Python but

Maybe the functions in std.string could be overloaded into a 
std.mutablestring library at some point to eliminate emulate the 
functionality of more dynamic languages for those programs that 
need it.

        char[] ReplaceAllSubstrings(inout char[] Original,
                                    in char[] SearchString,
                                    in char[] Substring)
        {
            string SOriginal = Original.dup;
            string SSearchString = SearchString.dup;
            string SSubstring = Substring.dup;
            SOriginal.replace(SSearchString, SSubstring);
            return Original.dup;
        }