> I feel this is a bikeshed issue

I guess it is. It's just how I have seen other here review code.

> Calling it 'buffer' will suggest it is a field along with 'buf' and 'buflen', but it is not.

I don't see why what would be the case.

> To my mind, calling it 'buffer' suggests it is more than a mere pointer, as in D one tends to think of a buffer as being an array or other more complex type.

I don't know what a good name would be since I don't know what the variable is supposed to do. You didn't give it descriptive name :wink:.