Java's strings, UTF-8 etc

[Zenaan Harkness]

Sounds like Java's String is well overdue for a medium term replacement plan then...

Some of us have some rather swift envy =)



On Fri, Apr 03, 2020 at 10:55:29AM -0400, Andrew Myers wrote:
> Afundamental problem with UTF-8 strings is the String API itself. String
> relies on being able to use integer indices as iterators and then using
> charAt() to select characters. A UTF-8 string should be a different
> abstraction that does not encourage programmers to do inefficient random
> access into strings, and also is able to return characters larger than 16 bits
> in size -- probably int/Integer rather than char/Character.
> 
> -- Andrew
> 
> Zenaan Harkness wrote:
> > 
> > Hi Brian, in case it is of interest, I did an exploration over a week or
> > two, and wrote up that journey here:
> > 
> > https://zenaan.github.io/zen/javadoc/zen/lang/string.html
> > 
> > See also of course:
> > 
> > https://github.com/zenaan/zen
> > 
> > And for reference, see also:
> > 
> > https://mail.openjdk.java.net/pipermail/discuss/2016-November/004065.html
> > 
> > https://mail.openjdk.java.net/pipermail/discuss/2016-November/004070.html
> > 
> > https://mail.openjdk.java.net/pipermail/discuss/2016-November/004072.html
> > 
> > 
> > (I was hoping to one day do a proof of concept for byte array backed UTF-8
> > strings in Java, but have not returned to this little project - in any
> > case, I do believe this would be a fundamental improvement to the core of
> > Java.)
> > 
> > Best regards,
> > Zenaan