Strings
In keeping with its script-like functionality, Icon adds a number of features to make working with strings easier. Most notable among these is the scanning system, which repeatedly calls functions on a string:
s ? write(find("the"))
is a short form of the examples shown earlier. In this case the subject of the find function is placed outside the parameters in front of the question-mark. Icon functions are deliberately (as opposed to automatically) written to identify the subject in parameter lists and allow them to be pulled out in this fashion.
Substrings can be extracted from a string by using a range specification within brackets. A range specification can return a point to a single character, or a slice of the string. Strings can be indexed from either the right or the left. It is important to note that positions within a string are between the characters 1A2B3C4 and can be specified from the right -3A-2B-1C0
For example
"Wikipedia" ==> "W"
"Wikipedia" ==> "k"
"Wikipedia" ==> "a"
"Wikipedia" ==> "Wi"
"Wikipedia" ==> "ia"
"Wikipedia" ==> "iki"
Where the last example shows using a length instead of an ending position
The subscripting specification can be used as a Lvalue within an expression. This can be used to insert strings into another string or delete parts of a string. For example,
s := "abc" s := "123" s now has a value of "a123c" s := "abcdefg" s := "ABCD" s now has a value of "abABCDefg" s := "abcdefg" s := "" s now has a value of "abefg"
Read more about this topic: Icon (programming Language)
Famous quotes containing the word strings:
“There are strings in the human heart that had better not be vibrated.”
—Charles Dickens (1812–1870)
“it was older sure than this year’s cutting,
Or even last year’s or the year’s before.
The wood was gray and the bark warping off it
And the pile somewhat sunken. Clematis
Had wound strings round and round it like a bundle.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“A culture may be conceived as a network of beliefs and purposes in which any string in the net pulls and is pulled by the others, thus perpetually changing the configuration of the whole. If the cultural element called morals takes on a new shape, we must ask what other strings have pulled it out of line. It cannot be one solitary string, nor even the strings nearby, for the network is three-dimensional at least.”
—Jacques Barzun (b. 1907)