Reorganize site to make room for documenting the other built-in modules.
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^title String Class
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A string is an immutable array of bytes. Strings usually store text, in which
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case the bytes are the UTF-8 encoding of the text's code points. But you can put
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any kind of byte values in there you want, including null bytes or invalid
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UTF-8.
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There are a few ways to think of a string:
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* As a searchable chunk of text composed of a sequence of textual code points.
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* As an iterable sequence of code point numbers.
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* As a flat array of directly indexable bytes.
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All of those are useful for some problems, so the string API supports all three.
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The first one is the most common, so that's what methods directly on the string
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class cater to.
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In UTF-8, a single Unicode code point—very roughly a single
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"character"—may encode to one or more bytes. This means you can't
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efficiently index by code point. There's no way to jump directly to, say, the
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fifth code point in a string without walking the string from the beginning and
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counting them as you go.
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Because counting code points is relatively slow, the indexes passed to string
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methods are *byte* offsets, not *code point* offsets. When you do:
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:::wren
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someString[3]
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That means "get the code point starting at *byte* three", not "get the third
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code point in the string". This sounds scary, but keep in mind that the methods
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on strings *return* byte indexes too. So, for example, this does what you want:
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:::wren
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var metalBand = "Fäcëhämmër"
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var hPosition = metalBand.indexOf("h")
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System.print(metalBand[hPosition]) //> h
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If you want to work with a string as a sequence numeric code points, call the
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`codePoints` getter. It returns a [Sequence](sequence.html) that decodes UTF-8
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and iterates over the code points, returning each as a number.
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If you want to get at the raw bytes, call `bytes`. This returns a Sequence that
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ignores any UTF-8 encoding and works directly at the byte level.
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## Static Methods
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### String.**fromCodePoint**(codePoint)
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Creates a new string containing the UTF-8 encoding of `codePoint`.
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:::wren
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String.fromCodePoint(8225) //> ‡
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It is a runtime error if `codePoint` is not an integer between `0` and
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`0x10ffff`, inclusive.
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## Methods
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### **bytes**
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Gets a [`Sequence`](sequence.html) that can be used to access the raw bytes of
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the string and ignore any UTF-8 encoding. In addition to the normal sequence
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methods, the returned object also has a subscript operator that can be used to
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directly index bytes.
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:::wren
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System.print("hello".bytes[1]) //> 101 (for "e")
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The `count` method on the returned sequence returns the number of bytes in the
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string. Unlike `count` on the string itself, it does not have to iterate over
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the string, and runs in constant time instead.
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### **codePoints**
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Gets a [`Sequence`](sequence.html) that can be used to access the UTF-8 decode
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code points of the string *as numbers*. Iteration and subscripting work similar
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to the string itself. The difference is that instead of returning
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single-character strings, this returns the numeric code point values.
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:::wren
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var string = "(ᵔᴥᵔ)"
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System.print(string.codePoints[0]) //> 40 (for "(")
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System.print(string.codePoints[4]) //> 7461 (for "ᴥ")
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If the byte at `index` does not begin a valid UTF-8 sequence, or the end of the
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string is reached before the sequence is complete, returns `-1`.
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:::wren
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var string = "(ᵔᴥᵔ)"
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System.print(string.codePoints[2]) //> -1 (in the middle of "ᵔ")
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### **contains**(other)
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Checks if `other` is a substring of the string.
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It is a runtime error if `other` is not a string.
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### **count**
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Returns the number of code points in the string. Since UTF-8 is a
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variable-length encoding, this requires iterating over the entire string, which
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is relatively slow.
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If the string contains bytes that are invalid UTF-8, each byte adds one to the
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count as well.
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### **endsWith**(suffix)
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Checks if the string ends with `suffix`.
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It is a runtime error if `suffix` is not a string.
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### **indexOf**(search)
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Returns the index of the first byte matching `search` in the string or `-1` if
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`search` was not found.
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It is a runtime error if `search` is not a string.
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### **iterate**(iterator), **iteratorValue**(iterator)
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Implements the [iterator protocol](../control-flow.html#the-iterator-protocol)
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for iterating over the *code points* in the string:
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:::wren
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var codePoints = []
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for (c in "(ᵔᴥᵔ)") {
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codePoints.add(c)
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}
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System.print(codePoints) //> [(, ᵔ, ᴥ, ᵔ, )]
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If the string contains any bytes that are not valid UTF-8, this iterates over
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those too, one byte at a time.
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### **startsWith**(prefix)
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Checks if the string starts with `prefix`.
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It is a runtime error if `prefix` is not a string.
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### **+**(other) operator
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Returns a new string that concatenates this string and `other`.
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It is a runtime error if `other` is not a string.
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### **==**(other) operator
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Checks if the string is equal to `other`.
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### **!=**(other) operator
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Check if the string is not equal to `other`.
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### **[**index**]** operator
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Returns a string containing the code point starting at byte `index`.
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:::wren
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System.print("ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ"[5]) //> ᴥ
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Since `ʕ` is two bytes in UTF-8 and `•` is three, the fifth byte points to the
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bear's nose.
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If `index` points into the middle of a UTF-8 sequence or at otherwise invalid
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UTF-8, this returns a one-byte string containing the byte at that index:
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:::wren
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System.print("I ♥ NY"[3]) //> (one-byte string [153])
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It is a runtime error if `index` is greater than the number of bytes in the
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string.
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