[r6rs-discuss] Strings as codepoint-vectors: bad

From: Jeff Read <bitwize>
Date: Sun Mar 18 21:43:08 2007

On 3/18/07, Shiro Kawai <shiro_at_lava.net> wrote:

> This issue was raised before, and several suggestions---
> like using opaque pointer to manipulate strings, and making
> strings immutable---are made, but I think the general consensus
> was to put off this issue to R7RS or later, for there are
> enough other issues in R6RS. So, for R6RS, I'm content
> as far as R6RS isn't restrict the choice of string implementation
> too much.

The use of immutable strings/opaque pointers appears to make nearly
everyone happy, including those who do not want to mandate Unicode
adoption and excluding those who use `string-set!' a lot (which I
usually only see happening when people attempt to use a string as a
crude bytevector). It should probably be adopted sooner rather than
later.

This is the kind of problem we may end up paying for later if not solved now.

--Jeff
Received on Sun Mar 18 2007 - 21:42:59 UTC