4 ms·

Sigh, another string library. And this is the reason why I prefer C++ over C. You don't end up writing another string library for the 300th time. There aren't t

Sigh, another string library. And this is the reason why I prefer C++ over C. You don't end up writing another string library for the 300th time. There aren't that many differences between string libraries anyway. Most of them are just structs with a pointer to a memory block, plus a length field.

antirez 13y ago
Yep, but this one has not the usual layout of struct+pointer (that's the whole point), and I'm not sure it qualifies as "yet another" since it was written in 2006.
- FooBarWidget 13y ago
  You're right, sorry. I only scanned the document, saw the struct, and closed the tab. The way you use a header before the data is similar to how Ruby represents its strings internally.
- pacaro 13y ago
  It appears to me to be "yet another" because the length before the string approach is usually referred to as a b-string. windows (for example) has had a comprehensive b-string library (type is called BSTR) for about 20 years - due to it's age and provenance it has the downside of thinking a character is a 16-bit value...
  - shadowfox 13y ago
    Just to add a reference to the parent: http://www.johndcook.com/cplusplus_strings.html http://www.johndcook.com/cplusplus_strings.html (The article is mildly interesting by itself)
pekk 13y ago
Yes, many people who have written much C have written some version of this library.
jhallenworld 13y ago
I'm not so happy with C++ string either. Main complaint is that I like the use of C strings as "semi-predicates"- you can test for NULL to indicate a failure. I wrote my own String class at one point to provide this feature: // These provide test if assigned/not assigned inline operator void*() const { return (void *)s; } inline bool operator!() const { if(s) return 0; else return 1; }
- dllthomas 13y ago
  Better not to pun, and use an actual optional where you want it...
  - jhallenworld 13y ago
    Eh, I like my C idioms. With C++ it's easy to make it safe so that accessing an unassigned string doesn't cause a crash (make NULL equivalent to empty strings except for tests). I have the same gripe with the way the STL is designed. Too tedious to test for empty first before reading an item.
    - deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
pjmlp 13y ago
Not only that. You also have x vector libraries for helping with bound checking in secure sensitive code and macro based generic data structures. No thanks.
munificent 13y ago
> And this is the reason why I prefer C++ over C. You don't end up writing another string library for the 300th time. Ironically, in almost all of my uses of C++, I did end up writing or using a custom string library there too. (I was doing mostly console games or language interpreters.)
geminitojanus 13y ago
> Sigh, another string library. And this is the reason why I prefer C++ over C. You don't end up writing another string library for the 300th time. You say that, and yet every C++ project I've ever touched in my life has had its own string class with various levels of horror attached. My favorite was the one that stored everything internally as 32-bit characters to be Unicode safe, and was never used in a codebase that had to deal with Unicode.

antirez 13y ago

Yep, but this one has not the usual layout of struct+pointer (that's the whole point), and I'm not sure it qualifies as "yet another" since it was written in 2006.

FooBarWidget 13y ago
You're right, sorry. I only scanned the document, saw the struct, and closed the tab. The way you use a header before the data is similar to how Ruby represents its strings internally.
pacaro 13y ago
It appears to me to be "yet another" because the length before the string approach is usually referred to as a b-string. windows (for example) has had a comprehensive b-string library (type is called BSTR) for about 20 years - due to it's age and provenance it has the downside of thinking a character is a 16-bit value...
- shadowfox 13y ago
  Just to add a reference to the parent: http://www.johndcook.com/cplusplus_strings.html http://www.johndcook.com/cplusplus_strings.html (The article is mildly interesting by itself)

pekk 13y ago

Yes, many people who have written much C have written some version of this library.

jhallenworld 13y ago

I'm not so happy with C++ string either. Main complaint is that I like the use of C strings as "semi-predicates"- you can test for NULL to indicate a failure. I wrote my own String class at one point to provide this feature: // These provide test if assigned/not assigned inline operator void*() const { return (void *)s; } inline bool operator!() const { if(s) return 0; else return 1; }

dllthomas 13y ago
Better not to pun, and use an actual optional where you want it...
- jhallenworld 13y ago
  Eh, I like my C idioms. With C++ it's easy to make it safe so that accessing an unassigned string doesn't cause a crash (make NULL equivalent to empty strings except for tests). I have the same gripe with the way the STL is designed. Too tedious to test for empty first before reading an item.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]

pjmlp 13y ago

Not only that. You also have x vector libraries for helping with bound checking in secure sensitive code and macro based generic data structures. No thanks.

munificent 13y ago

> And this is the reason why I prefer C++ over C. You don't end up writing another string library for the 300th time. Ironically, in almost all of my uses of C++, I did end up writing or using a custom string library there too. (I was doing mostly console games or language interpreters.)

geminitojanus 13y ago

> Sigh, another string library. And this is the reason why I prefer C++ over C. You don't end up writing another string library for the 300th time. You say that, and yet every C++ project I've ever touched in my life has had its own string class with various levels of horror attached. My favorite was the one that stored everything internally as 32-bit characters to be Unicode safe, and was never used in a codebase that had to deal with Unicode.