Questions tagged [strings]
For questions about the implementation or design of strings within a programming language.
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Creating an interface for stringifying objects that allows loop detection
Suppose a language has a rust-style trait system but is garbage collected and most types are reference types by default.
I could create a trait like this:
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27
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Why do programming languages use delimiters (quotes) for strings?
Almost every programming language requires strings (or char* or equivelent) to be marked with quotes. Few languages allow other delimiters, many languages allow ...
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4
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Prior art on modeling characters of variable lengths
In some encodings such as UTF-8, characters are of variable length in bytes. It's a bit like a tagged union, but the exact size could be computed, so the next element in a string could follow ...
- 2,010
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In Python, why isn't it a syntax error when a list of strings is defined without comma separators?
When coding in Python, I found that defining a list of strings without separating the strings with a comma is not a syntax error. When running this code:
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To what degree is it practical to let objects be stored packed? [closed]
Let's say I want my compiler to store objects packed (data and collection members aligned to non-word boundaries).
Situation #1: I want to store an array of booleans.
A few languages already let the ...
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4
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2
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Why would Short String Optimization not apply to dynamic arrays?
Short string optimization is the optimization that sufficiently short strings have their data stored inline rather than an external buffer, so the string type ends up being a union. Swift does this, ...
- 8,563
15
votes
9
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What are some different approaches to raw string syntax, and what are their pros and cons?
Many languages include a "raw string" literal type, intended for arbitrary (or as close as possible to arbitrary) strings of characters (and/or bytes), ignoring escape sequences and the like....
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How have modern language designs dealt with Unicode strings?
Languages developed over the last fifteen years or so have been within the era where Unicode is ubiquitous, and so could design their core string types accordingly. There are a lot of new issues that ...
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Why do many dynamically typed languages identify types with strings?
I noticed in JavaScript and Lua, 'types' i.e., those returned by typeof()/type() are just identified by strings. As such we see ...
- 7,285
7
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1
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What design trade-offs led to the "Norway problem" in YAML, and when are they worthwhile?
A well-known problem in YAML is a type-inference issue in parsing where a string is misinterpreted as a boolean. This is known as the "Norway problem", because it occurs when a field or ...
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8
votes
9
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What are the different syntax options for formatted string literals?
One option in Python is the f-string:
f"{a} {b} {c}"
Which is equivalent to:
...
- 1,474
11
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6
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What ways exist for handling object to string conversion?
For example:
Java uses a toString() method, and calls that behind the scenes. If you don't implement one, you inherit it from the base class (...
- 8,563
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4
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Should my language distinguish between single- and double-quoted literals?
In most modern languages, string literals can use either single (') or double (") quotes. Are there any reasons to ...
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4
votes
1
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Implementing a number to string semantics efficiently in a C-style language?
In C our options for converting numbers to strings and adding them to a string are limited to:
Write your own function.
sprintf() to a buffer.
Either way, one ...
- 7,285
17
votes
11
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What are the advantages/disadvantages of null-terminated strings vs length-prefixed strings?
There are two main ways to implement strings in a language: null-terminated and length-prefixed strings.
From Wikipedia:
A null-terminated string is a character string stored as an array
containing ...
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10
answers
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What are the advantages of strings and character arrays being different?
In many languages such as Java, strings and character arrays are distinct types. In Java one must use toCharArray() in order to use array semantics on strings.
In C,...
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votes
3
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What are the downsides of making all strings immutable to improve security and concurrency?
Many programming languages (such as Java) make strings immutable to mitigate many potential serious security threats.
Are there any major downsides or issues with a language having all strings ...
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