Why is System.arraycopy not camelCased?

Question

Java's standard libraries seem to use camelCase for method names. Native functions like nanoTime() are no exceptions.

If so, why is System.arraycopy not camelCased?

Is there something special about System.arraycopy?

Answer 1

It's been in Java for before v1.0 was released - so my guess is that it predates the naming conventions, and it was missed in a sweep of the API when the naming conventions were decided.

(In other news, NullPointerException should be called NullReferenceException.)