Is std::byte in C++ 17 equivalent to byte in C#?

Question

I just noticed std::byte in the C++ 17.

I am asking this question because I use the code below to send byte array to C++ to play audio sound.

C#:

[DllImport ("AudioStreamer")]
public static extern void playSound (byte[] audioBytes);

C++:

#define EXPORT_API __declspec(dllexport)
extern "C" void EXPORT_API playSound(unsigned char* audioBytes)

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With the new byte type in C++ 17, it looks like I might be able to do this now:

C#:

[DllImport ("AudioStreamer")]
public static extern void playSound (byte[] audioBytes);

C++:

#define EXPORT_API __declspec(dllexport)
extern "C" void EXPORT_API playSound(byte[] audioBytes)

I am not sure if this will even work because the compiler I use does not support byte in C++ 17 yet.

So, is std::byte in C++ 17 equivalent to byte in C#? Is there a reason to not use std::byte over unsigned char* ?

Answer 1

According to C++ reference,

Like the character types (char, unsigned char, signed char) std::byte can be used to access raw memory occupied by other objects.

This tells me that you can freely replace

unsigned char audioBytes[]

with

std::byte audioBytes[]

in a function header, and everything is going to work, provided that you plan to treat bytes as bytes, not as numeric objects.