Useful functions missing in the String module?

[eriksvedang]

The String module is probably lacking a lot of useful functions commonly found in other standard libraries. Let's add them!

[hellerve]

I have a list of useful functions (this is a verbatim copy of what’s present in zepto):

• (String.join strs delim): joins a list of strings with a delimiter
• (String.split str delim): splits a string on a delimiter, returns a list of substrings
• (String.in? str sub): checks whether a substring is within a string
• (String.count str c): counts the number of occurrences of character c in a string
• (String.starts-with? str sub): checks whether a string starts with a substring
• (String.ends-with? str sub): checks whether a string ends with a substring
• (String.trim str): trims whitespace from a string
• (String.upper? str): checks whether string is upper case
• (String.lower? str): checks whether string is lower case
• (String.num? str): checks whether string is numerical
• (String.alpha? str): checks whether string is alphabetical
• (String.alphanum? str): checks whether string is alphanumerical

There are more useful functions, but that’s a whole lot and a good start, I’d say.

Cheers

[eriksvedang]

Great, yes this looks like a very decent start indeed.

[Kungsgeten]

Maybe s.el (the long lost Emacs string manipulation library) can be used as inspiration?

[hellerve]

Looks good! It also reminds me that we still have to wrap a regex library!

[bjorn3]

• string to int
• int to string

[hellerve]

Those are already provided as Int.str and Int.from-string! The floating point data types do not have from-string functions, but should probably have them...

[bjorn3]

Should have looked at the source

[hellerve]

Don’t worry! We have to document the standard modules sooner or later, to make it a bit easier for people to know what’s there.

[eriksvedang]

I feel like this is OK to close now?

[hellerve]

I haven’t ported everything from the long lost Emacs string library yet, nor do I intend to. SOme of the functions do not need to b included in the standard library, in my opinion.

That being said, I do think that a handful of functions from the library should be included, like truncate and split-up-to.

[eriksvedang]

OK, let us leave it open until then, then :)

[chrisosaurus]

I am going to do a little work on the Strings module, adding documentation, and adding some new functions which I think are important.

I will send a PR once I have a few commits ready.

[eriksvedang]

I guess the String module will never be completely done, so perhaps we can close this now? Or are there still some functions that we really need? If so – let's enumerate them so we know what to shoot for.

[chrisosaurus]

@eriksvedang good point, I'm pretty happy with the current shape of String for now, I don't see anything huge missing, happy for this to be closed.