To Walter, about char[] initialization by FF
Serg Kovrov
user at domain.invalid
Mon Jul 31 03:28:16 PDT 2006
* Oskar Linde:
> Having char[].length return something other than the actual number
> of char-units would break it's array semantics.
Yes, I see. Thats why I do not like much char[] as substitute for string
type.
> It is actually not very often that you need to count the number
> of characters as opposed to the number of (UTF-8) code units.
Why not use separate properties for that?
> Counting the number of characters is also a rather expensive
> operation.
Indeed. Store once as property (and update as needed) is better than
calculate it each time you need it.
> All the ordinary operations (searching, slicing, concatenation,
> sub-string search, etc) operate on code units rather than
> characters.
Yes that's tough one. If you want to slice an array - use array unit's
count for that. But if you want to slice a *string* (substring, search,
etc) - use character's count for that.
Maybe there should be interchangeable types - string and char[]. For
different length, slice, find, etc. behaviors? I mean it could be same
actual type, but different contexts for properties.
And besides, string as opposite to char[] is more pleasant for my eyes =)
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