Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uflorida!haven!uvaarpa!virginia!uvacs!mac
From: mac@uvacs.cs.Virginia.EDU (Alex Colvin)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: String lengths
Summary: substrings, cat
Message-ID: <2969@uvacs.cs.Virginia.EDU>
Date: 11 Feb 89 14:53:54 GMT
References: <8876@alice.UUCP> <6239@saturn.ucsc.edu>
Organization: University of Virginia
Lines: 16

In article <6239@saturn.ucsc.edu>, haynes@ucscc.UCSC.EDU (Jim Haynes) writes:
...<history of string representations>...

> What's the difference between a string and an array of characters?
> Is it anything other than the set of operations that are provided
> to operate on it?

In the indirect representation (via length & pointer) any substring is also
a string.

In the end-delimited representation (as in C) only a tail substring is a
string.  This still allows you to consume a string from start to end, but
makes it difficult to pull a string off the start.

In both representations, catenation is messy.  That's when we turn to
buffer chains.