• "Ben Hinkle" <bhinkle4 juno.com> Oct 31 2003
• J Anderson <anderson badmama.com.au.REMOVE> Oct 31 2003
• "Walter" <walter digitalmars.com> Oct 31 2003
• "Charles Sanders" <sanders-consulting comcast.net> Oct 31 2003
• Helmut Leitner <helmut.leitner chello.at> Nov 01 2003
• "Ben Hinkle" <bhinkle4 juno.com> Nov 01 2003
• "Vathix" <vathix dprogramming.com> Nov 01 2003

"Ben Hinkle" <bhinkle4 juno.com> writes:

Why is "toStringz" called "toStringz"? I was looking for a function name
more along the lines of "toCString" or just "cstring". It is a cute pun on
"strings" and "stringz" and I guess the "z" is for "zero" and it mirrors
"toString" but overall the name is pretty obscure to me.
I can't remember the exact names of the functions that converted from Pascal
to C string I used back when the Mac was Pascal based but they seemed pretty
reasonable.
Has there been discussion of this before?
-Ben

J Anderson <anderson badmama.com.au.REMOVE> writes:

Ben Hinkle wrote:

Why is "toStringz" called "toStringz"? I was looking for a function name
more along the lines of "toCString" or just "cstring". It is a cute pun on
"strings" and "stringz" and I guess the "z" is for "zero" and it mirrors
"toString" but overall the name is pretty obscure to me.
I can't remember the exact names of the functions that converted from Pascal
to C string I used back when the Mac was Pascal based but they seemed pretty
reasonable.
Has there been discussion of this before?
-Ben


  


terminated strings refer to c, it's not the only language that uses 
them.  In fact, zero terminated strings in c are just a convention 
(although a very common convention), not part of the language.

-Anderson

"Walter" <walter digitalmars.com> writes:

"Ben Hinkle" <bhinkle4 juno.com> wrote in message
news:bntnf9$2262$1 digitaldaemon.com...
 Why is "toStringz" called "toStringz"? I was looking for a function name
 more along the lines of "toCString" or just "cstring". It is a cute pun on
 "strings" and "stringz" and I guess the "z" is for "zero" and it mirrors
 "toString" but overall the name is pretty obscure to me.
 I can't remember the exact names of the functions that converted from


 to C string I used back when the Mac was Pascal based but they seemed


 reasonable.
 Has there been discussion of this before?
 -Ben


It falls back to the ancient convention of calling a zero-terminated string
ASCIZ. I always liked that, though I haven't seen anyone use that nickname
for a loooong time. At one early point, the D char type was called 'ascii',
but since ascii is a trademarked name, and since char morphed into being a
UTF-8 type, it was dropped.

"Charles Sanders" <sanders-consulting comcast.net> writes:

I kind of agree, its not completely intuitive, i usually alias it to c_str
in the string module.

C

"Ben Hinkle" <bhinkle4 juno.com> wrote in message
news:bntnf9$2262$1 digitaldaemon.com...
 Why is "toStringz" called "toStringz"? I was looking for a function name
 more along the lines of "toCString" or just "cstring". It is a cute pun on
 "strings" and "stringz" and I guess the "z" is for "zero" and it mirrors
 "toString" but overall the name is pretty obscure to me.
 I can't remember the exact names of the functions that converted from


 to C string I used back when the Mac was Pascal based but they seemed


 reasonable.
 Has there been discussion of this before?
 -Ben

Helmut Leitner <helmut.leitner chello.at> writes:

Charles Sanders wrote:
 
 I kind of agree, its not completely intuitive, i usually alias it to c_str
 in the string module.


I find it entirely intuitive, for the "Z" at the end symbolizes
the placement.

I once built a system that supported a number of different
string types in a database. The names where (IIRC):

  string /0       STRINGZ                       short SZ
  n string        NSTRING (max 256 chars)       short NS
  nm string       NMSTRING (max 64 K chars)     short MS
  ...

There seemed nothing more natural.

Such string conventions have nothing to do with a special language,
so c_str just embodies a personal habit or viewpoint.

-- 
Helmut Leitner    leitner hls.via.at
Graz, Austria   www.hls-software.com

"Ben Hinkle" <bhinkle4 juno.com> writes:

I thought of two other points.
1) By being so close to toString one could easily believe it takes the same
inputs as toString and just returns a zero-terminated version. But as far as
I can tell one can only pass char[] to toStringz.
2) shouldn't toStringz return a D string that is zero terminated? That would
be more consistent with toString and would make the use of the word "string"
more consistent.

-Ben

"Ben Hinkle" <bhinkle4 juno.com> wrote in message
news:bntnf9$2262$1 digitaldaemon.com...
 Why is "toStringz" called "toStringz"? I was looking for a function name
 more along the lines of "toCString" or just "cstring". It is a cute pun on
 "strings" and "stringz" and I guess the "z" is for "zero" and it mirrors
 "toString" but overall the name is pretty obscure to me.
 I can't remember the exact names of the functions that converted from


 to C string I used back when the Mac was Pascal based but they seemed


 reasonable.
 Has there been discussion of this before?
 -Ben

"Vathix" <vathix dprogramming.com> writes:

 2) shouldn't toStringz return a D string that is zero terminated? That


 be more consistent with toString and would make the use of the word


 more consistent.


That's not bad... I do this sometimes, to make a string compatible with C
and D:
s = toStringz(s)[0 .. s.length];