On Thu, 5 Mar 2009, Martin Peach wrote:
Yes it seems to me a string manipulation object like [strncmp] should be able to accept symbols, floats, lists of floats, and messages naming arrays, on any of its inlets that are meant to accept strings.
By floats, you mean a single float representing a single character? If not, then I suppose that any string made of individual float messages would have to be converted to a list of floats first, so that it goes well with all equivalent forms that use a single message per string.
But now, La Question Qui Tue: if you do a [string append] on two strings of different format, what should be the format of the output?
Actually, there's another killer question: if you do a [string append] on two arrays, and that it is agreed that the output should go in an array, in which array does the output go?
Maybe it should be [arrble $1( or [tabray $1( so as not to prefer one over the other.
The problem with that is that the big-endians will think that "arrble" connotes racial discrimination in favour of arrays whereas little-endians will claim that it is "tabray" that is favoured. A more politically correct way of constructing a new term would be by interleaving the letters from both words (inspired by INTERCAL), like "atrarbalye" or "taarbrlaey". This does not really solve the problem but it reduces it by a large factor so that you can conveniently sweep it under the carpet without making too much of an unsightly lump. This is the glory of Psychological Engineering at work.
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