Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!CIM-VAX.HONEYWELL.COM!dscargo
From: dscargo@CIM-VAX.HONEYWELL.COM ("DAVE CARGO")
Newsgroups: comp.lang.icon
Subject: string scanning vs. assignment
Message-ID: <8909201614.AA16660@megaron.arizona.edu>
Date: 20 Sep 89 17:01:00 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Distribution: inet
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 29

Richard Goerwitz corrected my problem with the Icon syntax and
proposed his solution to the capitalization problem.  I tried it and it
worked, but I got currious about performance.  When I timed his
solution  with a corrected varient of one of mine,I discovered that 
the string scanning approach takes more time (about half again 
more as revealed by timing tests on Icon 7.0 for VMS.

Richard's solution:

procedure capline(word, line)
  line2 := ""
  line ? {
    while line2 ||:= tab(find(word))
    do line2 ||:= map(=word,&lcase,&ucase)
    line2 ||:= tab(0)
    }
  return line2
end

my corrected and modified solution:

procedure capline(word, line)
    line2 := copy(line)
    every line2[find(word, line)+:*word] := map(word, &lcase, &ucase)
    return line2
end

I think my solution is faster because it creates fewer tempory
variables and does fewer operations.