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Correct string interop section #68

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Jan 17, 2016
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Correct string interop section #68

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18 changes: 15 additions & 3 deletions lessons/advanced/erlang.md
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Expand Up @@ -81,18 +81,30 @@ example.

### Strings

Erlang strings are represented by single quotes (`''`) much like Elixir's char lists. In addition to sharing the syntax with Erlang strings, char lists are more commonly use when interfacing with Erlang code.
In Elixir when we talk about strings we mean UTF-8 encoded binaries. In Erlang, strings still use double quotes but refer to char lists:

Elixir:

```elixir
"Example String"
iex> is_list('Example')
true
iex> is_binary("Example")
true
iex> <<"Example">> === "Example"
true
```

Erlang:

```erlang
'Example String'.
1> is_list('Example').
false
1> is_list("Example").
true
1> is_binary("Example").
false
1> is_binary(<<"Example">>).
true
```

It's important to note that many older Erlang libraries may not support binaries so we need to convert Elixir strings to char lists. Thankfully this is easy to accomplish with the `to_char_list/1` function:
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