Subject: Re: Back to character set implementation thinking From: Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.net> Date: Fri, 29 Mar 2002 14:52:04 GMT Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp Message-ID: <3226402339496495@naggum.net> * Brian Spilsbury | I think you need to differentiate between mutable and immutable | strings. I have suggested that strings need to be separated into two mor basic types: a stream which you read one element at a time, and a vector which provides random access. The former maps directly to files and is suitable for parsing and formatting, while a vector of characters is more useful for repeated access to the same characters. We have the system class string-stream today, which offers stream access to a string, but I think we need a subclass of string like stream-string, which may contain such things as the octets from another stream such as directly from an input file, and be processed sequentially, and therefore should also be able to use stateful encodings such that reading through them with the string-stream functions would maintain that state. /// -- In a fight against something, the fight has value, victory has none. In a fight for something, the fight is a loss, victory merely relief.