First Impressions

[Geoff Carlton]

Walter Bright wrote:
> Derek Parnell wrote:
>> And is it there yet? I mean, given that a string is just a lump of 
>> text, is
>> there any text processing operation that cannot be simply done to a 
>> char[]
>> item? I can't think of any but maybe somebody else can.
> 
> I believe it's there. I don't think std::string or java.lang.String have 
> anything over it.
> 
>> And if a char[] is just as capable as a std::string, then why not have an
>> official alias in Phobos? Will 'alias char[] string' cause anyone any
>> problems?
> 
> I don't think it'll cause problems, it just seems pointless.

Hi,
The main reasons I think are these:

It simplifies the initial examples, particularly main(string[]), and 
maps such as string[string].  More complex examples are a map of words 
to text lines, string[][string], rather than char[][][char[]].

It clarifies the actual use of the entity.  It is a text string, not 
just a jumbled array of characters.  Arrays of char can be used for 
other things, such as the set of player letters in a scrabble game.  A 
string has the additional usage that we know it as is text string.  The 
alias reflects that intent.

Given a user wants to use a string, there is no need to expose the 
implementation detail of how strings are done in D.  Perhaps in perl, 
strings are a linked list of shorts, but it doesn't mean that you'd have 
  list<short> all over the place.

Use of char[] and char[][] looks like low level C.  It has also been 
noted that it encourages char based indexing, which is not a good thing 
for utf8.

Anyway, hope one of those points grabbed you!
Geoff