title: Can I get a pointer to a Span?
body: <p>I have a <code>(ReadOnly)Span&lt;byte&gt;</code> from which I want to decode a string.</p>
  
  <p>Only in .NET Core 2.1 I have the new overload to decode a string from it without needing to copy the bytes:</p>
  
  <pre><code>Encoding.GetString(ReadOnlySpan&lt;byte&gt; bytes);
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>In .NET Standard 2.0 and .NET 4.6 (which I also want to support), I only have the classic overloads:</p>
  
  <pre><code>Encoding.GetString(byte[] bytes);
  Encoding.GetString(byte* bytes, int byteCount);
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>The first one requires a copy of the bytes into an array which I want to avoid.<br>
  The second requires a byte pointer, so I thought about getting one from my span, like</p>
  
  <pre><code>Encoding.GetString(Unsafe.GetPointer&lt;byte&gt;(span.Slice(100)))
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>...but I failed finding an actual method for that. I tried <code>void* Unsafe.AsPointer&lt;T&gt;(ref T value)</code>, but I cannot pass a span to that, and didn't find another method dealing with pointers (and spans).</p>
  
  <p>Is this possible at all, and if yes, how?</p>