It can be refactored into creating a buffer primitive of void* buf, size_t capacity, size_t refcount. Then, the string can implement using CoW logic on a buffer and size_t length. Read-only references to substrings become cheap and copying is done whenever there's a modification or realloc can't grow the underlying buffer.
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It can be refactored into creating a buffer primitive of void* buf, size_t capacity, size_t refcount. Then, the string can implement using CoW logic on a buffer and size_t length. Read-only references to substrings become cheap and copying is done whenever there's a modification or realloc can't grow the underlying buffer.