Strings

The String type is a UTF-8 encoded, immutable string. Instances of this type are created using single or double quotes:

'hello'
"hello"

Strings support escape sequences and interpolation:

'hello\tworld'  # => 'hello   world'
'number: ${10}' # => 'number: 10'

Single and double quoted strings are the same, i.e. both support escape sequences and interpolation.

Ownership and copying

Strings are value types and use atomic reference counting to make copying and sharing them cheap:

let a = 'foo'
let b = a

Here we can use both a and b after b is defined, because b is given a "copy" of the string, instead of taking over ownership.

StringBuffer

Because String is immutable, operations such as concatenations create new String instances. This can be inefficient when performing operations that produce many intermediate String instances. To work around this, the type std.string.StringBuffer is used:

import std.string (StringBuffer)

class async Main {
  fn async main {
    let buf = StringBuffer.new

    buf.push('hello ')
    buf.push('world, ')
    buf.push('how are you ')
    buf.push('doing?')
    buf.into_string # => 'hello world, how are you doing?'
  }
}

Here we push a bunch of String values into the buffer, then concatenate them together without producing intermediate String instances by calling StringBuffer.into_string.

String slicing

The String type offers two ways of slicing up a String:

• String.slice: slices a String into a ByteArray using a byte range
• String.substring: slices a String into another String using an extended grapheme cluster (i.e. character) range

For example:

'😊'.slice(start: 0, size: 4)      # => [240, 159, 152, 138]
'😊'.substring(start: 0, chars: 1) # => '😊'

Slicing a String using String.slice is a constant-time operation, while String.substring runs in linear time due to the use of extended grapheme clusters.

String iteration

The String type offers two ways of iterating over its contents:

• String.bytes: returns an iterator over the bytes in the String
• String.chars: returns an iterator over the extended grapheme clusters in the String