My understanding is that pure is used for compiler optimization in loops and expressions. It leaves out multiple calls if it figures out it is not needed.

Is pure used for anything else?

int * pureFunction()

1. the pointer needs to be the same.
2. the value that the pointer points to needs to be the same. I call this the "value
   of interest" with relation to pure. The pointer doesn't matter.
3. both the pointer and the value the pointer is pointing too needs to be the same.

pureCalloc() satisfies (2)
pureMalloc() violates everything.

Does the D compiler do any optimizations?

My understanding is that pure is used for compiler optimization in loops and expressions. It leaves out multiple calls if it figures out it is not needed.

int * pureFunction()

1. the pointer needs to be the same.
2. the value that the pointer points to needs to be the same. I call this the "value
   of interest" with relation to pure. The pointer doesn't matter.
3. both the pointer and the value the pointer is pointing too needs to be the same.

pureCalloc() satisfies (2)
pureMalloc() violates everything.

A pure factory function is a strongly pure function that returns a result that has mutable indirections. All mutable memory returned by the call may not be referenced by any other part of the program, i.e. it is newly allocated by the function. Nor may the mutable references of the result refer to any object that existed before the function call.

Does the D compiler do any optimizations?

Implementation Defined: An implementation may assume that a strongly pure function that returns a result without mutable indirections will have the same effect for all invocations with equivalent arguments. It is allowed to memoize the result of the function under the assumption that equivalent parameters always produce equivalent results. [...] An implementation is currently not required to enforce validity of memoization in all cases.