Text Strings

Strings carry text through most application code. This chapter starts with safe owning values, then follows the operations used to inspect, search, compare, edit, and match their contents. Start with Text Strings Overview to find the workflow that fits your task.

• Text Strings Overview
  • Using Strings as Everyday Values
  • Understanding String Attributes
  • Transforming Read-only Strings
  • Editing One Working Value in Place
  • Managing StringEditor Storage
  • Finding Text Positions
  • Slicing and Splitting Strings
  • Accessing Characters and Writing Parsers
  • Comparing Whole and Partial Text
  • Normalizing Unicode Strings
  • Working with Character Sets
  • Fuzzy Matching with Edit Distance
• Using Strings
  • Read-Only String Parameters
  • Storing and Returning String Values
  • String Literals and StringLiteral
  • Shared String Copies and Slice Lifetime
• String Attributes
  • Empty Text and Well-formed Encodings
  • Encoded Length and Code-Point Count
  • Encoding-Independent String Hashes
  • Storage Identifiers and String-Index Ownership
• Transforming Strings
  • Common Transformations Return String Values
  • Unicode and ASCII Case Conversion
  • Cleaning Whitespace and Converting Word Boundaries
  • Custom Character Mappings
  • Replacing and Removing Text
  • Trimming the Edges of a String
  • Combining Transformations and Managing Storage
• Editing Strings in Place
  • StringEditor Mutations and Index Validity
  • Removing and Keeping Text Ranges
  • Removing Matching Text and Character Sets
  • Insert and Replace at Known Positions
  • Truncating and Aligning Text by Code-Point Width
  • Reusing Editor Capacity with clear() and reset()
  • In-Place Unicode Normalization
• Managing StringEditor Storage
  • Native Capacity Units and Reservation
  • Automatic Copy-on-Write Detachment
  • Explicit Copy-on-Write Detachment
  • Capacity Retention, clear(), reset(), and shrinkToFit()
  • Storage Capacity, Memory Usage, and Sharing Diagnostics
• Finding Text Positions
  • Text Search Operations and Match Types
  • Native Search Indexes and Character Boundaries
  • Searching with Character Sets
  • Finding the Start and End of a Character Run
  • Repeated Text Searches and Overlapping Matches
  • Slicing Text between Search Results
• Slicing and Splitting Strings
  • Slicing with Byte and Code-Point Ranges
  • Prefix, Suffix, and Middle Slices
  • Splitting Strings into Shared Slices
• Character Access and Parsing of Strings
  • Choosing Character Iteration, Parsing, or Indexed Access
  • Byte Indexes and Code-Point Indexes
  • Parsing with StringCharReader
  • Iterating over Decoded Characters
  • Sequential Character Reading with Native Indexes
  • Indexed Character Access
  • Why UTF-32 Changes the Cost of Indexed Access
  • Character Access Methods and Their Costs
• Comparing Whole and Partial Strings
  • Decoded String Equality and Ordering
  • Custom Character Comparison Rules
  • Prefix, Suffix, Substring, and Occurrence Tests
  • Comparing Stored Bytes
  • Validating Untrusted Text
• Normalizing Unicode Strings
  • Canonical and Compatibility Normalization
  • Copy-Returning and In-Place Normalization
  • Normalize After Joining Text
• Working with Character Sets
  • Defining a Reusable Character Policy
  • Validating Incoming Text
  • Combining Policies for Different Positions
  • Trimming Borders and Removing Unwanted Characters
  • Character Sets in Word Transformations
• Fuzzy Matching with Edit Distance
  • Damerau-Levenshtein Edit Distance
  • Finding Candidate Suggestions
  • Suggestion Thresholds, Result Limits, and Comparison Rules
  • Reading Ranked Matches and Edit Distances