How to use UnsafeMutableRawPointer to fill an array?

Question

I have a Metal texture, I want to access its data from Swift by making it a float4 array (so that I can access each pixel 4 color components).

I discovered this method

Answer 1

Details

• Xcode 11.2.1 (11B500), Swift 5.1

Solution

extension UnsafeMutableRawPointer {
    func toArray(to type: T.Type, capacity count: Int) -> [T]{
        let pointer = bindMemory(to: type, capacity: count)
        return Array(UnsafeBufferPointer(start: pointer, count: count))
    }
}

Usage

var array = [1,2,3,4,5]
let ponter = UnsafeMutableRawPointer(mutating: array)
print(ponter.toArray(to: Int.self, capacity: array.count))