History
Lisp introduced the notion of interned strings for its symbols. Historically, the data structure used as a string intern pool was called an 'oblist' (when it was implemented as a linked list) or an 'obarray' (when it was implemented as an array).
Modern Lisp dialects typically distinguish symbols from strings; interning a given string returns an existing symbol or creates a new one, whose name is that string. Symbols often have additional properties that strings do not (such as storage for associated values, or namespacing): the distinction is also useful to prevent accidentally comparing an interned string with a not-necessarily-interned string, which could lead to intermittent failures depending on usage patterns.
Read more about this topic: String Interning
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The history of every country begins in the heart of a man or a woman.”
—Willa Cather (1876–1947)
“There is a history in all men’s lives,
Figuring the natures of the times deceased,
The which observed, a man may prophesy,
With a near aim, of the main chance of things
As yet not come to life.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“The reverence for the Scriptures is an element of civilization, for thus has the history of the world been preserved, and is preserved.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)