[erlang-questions] Strings as Lists

[Dmitrii 'Mamut' Dimandt]

Richard Carlsson wrote:
> tsuraan wrote:
>   
>> Why does erlang internally represent strings as lists?  In every 
>> language I've used other than Java, a string is a sequence of octets, 
>> just like Erlang's binary type.  I know that you can represent a string 
>> efficiently by using <<"string">> rather than just "string", but why 
>> doesn't erlang do this by default?  Is it just because pre-12B binary 
>> handling wasn't as efficient as list handling, or is Erlang intended to 
>> support UTF-32?
>>     
>
> Strings as lists is simple and flexible (i.e., if you already have lists,
> you don't need to add another data type). Functions that work on lists,
> such as append, reverse, etc., can be used directly on strings; you
> don't need to program in different styles if you're traversing a list
> or a string; etc. 
This is only true for ASCII text ;) Non-ASCII gets screwed up badly:

lists:reverse("text") %% gives you "txet"
lists:reverse("?????") %% Russian for text becomes 
[130,209,129,209,186,208,181,208,130,209] which is clearly not what I 
wanted :)
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://erlang.org/pipermail/erlang-questions/attachments/20080215/37911ba2/attachment.htm>