Re: String represents arrays of characters.

[Dirk Laurie <dpl@...>]

On Tue, Dec 14, 2010 at 09:51:25AM +0200, Tony Finch wrote:
> The problem with treating a string as an array of characters is that 
> characters do not have a uniform size. It is more accurate to treat 
> Lua strings as arrays of bytes.

You are right.

According to the Lua reference manual:
    "Lua is 8-bit clean: strings can contain any 8-bit value, 
    including embedded zeros ('\0')."

Lua 5.2.0 (alpha)  Copyright (C) 1994-2010 Lua.org, PUC-Rio
> a="Curaçao"; return #a
8

Actually at this stage predicting the result of any string function 
except byte and char applied to a Unicode string is for me like
solving a chess problem.  E.g.

> s='mêên'; return s:match('ê*')

Don't run to your terminal immediately: figure it out!

Dirk

PS If it does not involve patterns, it is like solving an easy
chess problem!