From: Austin Ziegler <austin@...>
Date: 2002-07-08T07:01:40+09:00
Subject: Re: is there a better string.each?

On Mon, 8 Jul 2002 06:30:30 +0900, Tom Sawyer wrote:
> i don't program in c/c++.
> 
> anyway, it dosen't matter. the point is simply that strings are an
> ordered list of characters. arrays are order lists of objects. in
> so far as the two are common, i want the same methods for both. no
> suprises. that's all.

I think what we're trying to get at is that the C/C++ model of char*
or char[] is broken -- or at least too close to the implementation
to be called a decent model. I have other reasons for believing that
the C++ STL std::string is broken, mostly due to implementation
failures and a widespread lack of support up to last year on several
relatively recent compilers.

C/C++ char[] strings require a NULL character at the end of the
string to terminate it -- even if you know the length of the string.
Do you want to require that behaviour in Ruby, or might you want a
string that knows its length?

The implementation isn't the same as the API, and while it is
sometimes useful to treat a string as an array, I haven't seen a
great need for it outside of C/C++ char[] strings which can't do a
third of what Ruby or Perl strings will do without three times as
much code.

I just checked an application that I forked recently -- there's not
a single time that I've had to delve into a Perl string as an array,
and there's close to 4000 LOC.

-austin
-- Austin Ziegler, austin@halostatue.ca on 2002.07.07 at 17.49.32