-----Original Message-----
From: Bryan C. Warnock [mailto:bryan.warn...@raba.com]
Sent: Friday, April 30, 2004 9:08 AM
To: Dan Sugalski

Cc: Perl6 Internals List
Subject: Re: Bit ops on strings

On Thu, 2004-04-29 at 13:04, Dan Sugalski wrote:
> I think left and right shift of strings should work the same way that
> shifts on ints works--that is, it doesn't grow, bits just fall off
> the end. You can decide whether to sign-extend or 0-extend, either
> one's OK.

Have we[1] finished working out what a string is yet?

[1] And by "we", I mean "you"[2].
[2] And by "you", I mean "you" plural.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

I have been following the discussion of strings on this list over the last few
weeks. It seems that there is somewhat of a disconnect in various definitions
of what is a "string". It seems as though there needs to be a hierarchy to
this with a little more clear definition. May I humbly propose the following:

        1. String - low-level, abstract, base class (or in Perl6 terms role --
I think) which represents a "logically" contiguous series of Parrot Int

        2. BinaryString - inherits from String, represents a "logically"
contiguous series of "bytes/bits"

        3. TextString - inherits from String, represents a series of
characters (where character is an abstract thingy which in the concrete of a
specific "font" is a particular "glyph") -- I'm hand-waving at the concept of
"font" and "glyph" here, but, I think you get the idea.

        4. RichTextString - inherits from TextString, represents a "String"
which various "properties" assigned to various substrings.

        * Now, "String" should not have any methods/properties which do not
apply to both the definition of a "BinaryString" and a "TextString".

        * Things like "LSR/LSL" should only apply to "BinaryString".

        * Properties like "language", "encoding", etc. only apply to
"TextStrings". Same for methods like "substr" (though this could be a "String"
method like "slice" which gives a slice of either a binary or text string I
suppose).

Anyway, the important point in all this is we should not mix the concept of a
"TextString" and "BinaryString". These are two distinct things in abstract
terms. They should not be treated the same (IMHO).

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