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:
“Love’s the only thing I’ve thought of or read about since I was knee-high. That’s what I always dreamed of, of meeting somebody and falling in love. And when that remarkable thing happened, I was going to recite poetry to her for hours about how her heart’s an angel’s wing and her hair the strings of a heavenly harp. Instead I got drunk and hollered at her and called her a harpy.”
—Ben Hecht (1893–1964)
“Death cut the strings that gave me life,
And handed me to Sorrow,
The only kind of middle wife
My folks could beg or borrow.”
—Countee Cullen (1903–1946)
“Until, accustomed to disappointments, you can let yourself rule and be ruled by these strings or emanations that connect everything together, you haven’t fully exorcised the demon of doubt that sets you in motion like a rocking horse that cannot stop rocking.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)