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52-483: A SQUOZE deck contains an encoded binary form of the original assembly language code; SQUOZE decks are converted to absolute machine code and stored in memory by a loader program. In the SQUOZE encoding , identifiers in the symbol table were represented in a 50-character alphabet , allowing a 36-bit machine word to represent six alphanumeric characters plus two flag bits, thus saving two bits per six characters, because

104-466: A sequence of the symbols from the alphabet set. For example, the alphabet of lowercase letters "a" through "z" can be used to form English words like "iceberg" while the alphabet of both upper and lower case letters can also be used to form proper names like "Misplaced Pages". A common alphabet is {0,1}, the binary alphabet , and a "00101111" is an example of a binary string . Infinite sequences of symbols may be considered as well (see Omega language ). It

156-426: A variable declared to be a string may either cause storage in memory to be statically allocated for a predetermined maximum length or employ dynamic allocation to allow it to hold a variable number of elements. When a string appears literally in source code , it is known as a string literal or an anonymous string. In formal languages , which are used in mathematical logic and theoretical computer science ,

208-433: A "array of characters" which may be stored in the same array but is often not null terminated. Using C string handling functions on such an array of characters often seems to work, but later leads to security problems . There are many algorithms for processing strings, each with various trade-offs. Competing algorithms can be analyzed with respect to run time, storage requirements, and so forth. The name stringology

260-414: A 10-byte buffer , along with its ASCII (or more modern UTF-8 ) representation as 8-bit hexadecimal numbers is: The length of the string in the above example, " FRANK ", is 5 characters, but it occupies 6 bytes. Characters after the terminator do not form part of the representation; they may be either part of other data or just garbage. (Strings of this form are sometimes called ASCIZ strings , after

312-453: A byte value in the ASCII range will represent only that ASCII character, making the encoding safe for systems that use those characters as field separators. Other encodings such as ISO-2022 and Shift-JIS do not make such guarantees, making matching on byte codes unsafe. These encodings also were not "self-synchronizing", so that locating character boundaries required backing up to the start of

364-462: A consequence, some people call such a string a Pascal string or P-string . Storing the string length as byte limits the maximum string length to 255. To avoid such limitations, improved implementations of P-strings use 16-, 32-, or 64-bit words to store the string length. When the length field covers the address space , strings are limited only by the available memory . If the length is bounded, then it can be encoded in constant space, typically

416-533: A dedicated string datatype at all, instead adopting the convention of representing strings as lists of character codes. Even in programming languages having a dedicated string type, string can usually be iterated as a sequence character codes, like lists of integers or other values. Representations of strings depend heavily on the choice of character repertoire and the method of character encoding. Older string implementations were designed to work with repertoire and encoding defined by ASCII, or more recent extensions like

468-414: A fixed length. A few languages such as Haskell implement them as linked lists instead. A lot of high-level languages provide strings as a primitive data type, such as JavaScript and PHP , while most others provide them as a composite data type, some with special language support in writing literals, for example, Java and C# . Some languages, such as C , Prolog and Erlang , avoid implementing

520-462: A length code are limited to the maximum value of the length code. Both of these limitations can be overcome by clever programming. It is possible to create data structures and functions that manipulate them that do not have the problems associated with character termination and can in principle overcome length code bounds. It is also possible to optimize the string represented using techniques from run length encoding (replacing repeated characters by

572-449: A machine word, thus leading to an implicit data structure , taking n + k space, where k is the number of characters in a word (8 for 8-bit ASCII on a 64-bit machine, 1 for 32-bit UTF-32/UCS-4 on a 32-bit machine, etc.). If the length is not bounded, encoding a length n takes log( n ) space (see fixed-length code ), so length-prefixed strings are a succinct data structure , encoding a string of length n in log( n ) + n space. In

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624-468: A one 8-bit byte per-character encoding) for reasonable representation. The normal solutions involved keeping single-byte representations for ASCII and using two-byte representations for CJK ideographs . Use of these with existing code led to problems with matching and cutting of strings, the severity of which depended on how the character encoding was designed. Some encodings such as the EUC family guarantee that

676-542: A program treated specially (such as period and space and comma) were in the same place in all the encodings a program would encounter. These character sets were typically based on ASCII or EBCDIC . If text in one encoding was displayed on a system using a different encoding, text was often mangled , though often somewhat readable and some computer users learned to read the mangled text. Logographic languages such as Chinese , Japanese , and Korean (known collectively as CJK ) need far more than 256 characters (the limit of

728-478: A separate integer (which may put another artificial limit on the length) or implicitly through a termination character, usually a character value with all bits zero such as in C programming language. See also " Null-terminated " below. String datatypes have historically allocated one byte per character, and, although the exact character set varied by region, character encodings were similar enough that programmers could often get away with ignoring this, since characters

780-426: A sequence of data or computer records other than characters — like a "string of bits " — but when used without qualification it refers to strings of characters. Use of the word "string" to mean any items arranged in a line, series or succession dates back centuries. In 19th-Century typesetting, compositors used the term "string" to denote a length of type printed on paper; the string would be measured to determine

832-646: A set are used in a diverse range of fields including logic, mathematics, computer science, and linguistics. An alphabet may have any cardinality ("size") and, depending on its purpose, may be finite (e.g., the alphabet of letters "a" through "z"), countable (e.g., { v 1 , v 2 , … } {\displaystyle \{v_{1},v_{2},\ldots \}} ), or even uncountable (e.g., { v x : x ∈ R } {\displaystyle \{v_{x}:x\in \mathbb {R} \}} ). Strings , also known as "words" or "sentences", over an alphabet are defined as

884-405: A single long consecutive array of characters, a typical text editor instead uses an alternative representation as its sequence data structure—a gap buffer , a linked list of lines, a piece table , or a rope —which makes certain string operations, such as insertions, deletions, and undoing previous edits, more efficient. The differing memory layout and storage requirements of strings can affect

936-437: A string datatype; such a meta-string is called a literal or string literal . Although formal strings can have an arbitrary finite length, the length of strings in real languages is often constrained to an artificial maximum. In general, there are two types of string datatypes: fixed-length strings , which have a fixed maximum length to be determined at compile time and which use the same amount of memory whether this maximum

988-501: A string is a finite sequence of symbols that are chosen from a set called an alphabet . A primary purpose of strings is to store human-readable text, like words and sentences. Strings are used to communicate information from a computer program to the user of the program. A program may also accept string input from its user. Further, strings may store data expressed as characters yet not intended for human reading. Example strings and their purposes: The term string may also designate

1040-402: A string, and pasting two strings together could result in corruption of the second string. Unicode has simplified the picture somewhat. Most programming languages now have a datatype for Unicode strings. Unicode's preferred byte stream format UTF-8 is designed not to have the problems described above for older multibyte encodings. UTF-8, UTF-16 and UTF-32 require the programmer to know that

1092-404: A string-specific datatype, depending on the needs of the application, the desire of the programmer, and the capabilities of the programming language being used. If the programming language's string implementation is not 8-bit clean , data corruption may ensue. C programmers draw a sharp distinction between a "string", aka a "string of characters", which by definition is always null terminated, vs.

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1144-497: A termination value. Most string implementations are very similar to variable-length arrays with the entries storing the character codes of corresponding characters. The principal difference is that, with certain encodings, a single logical character may take up more than one entry in the array. This happens for example with UTF-8, where single codes ( UCS code points) can take anywhere from one to four bytes, and single characters can take an arbitrary number of codes. In these cases,

1196-477: A text file that is both human-readable and intended for consumption by a machine. This is needed in, for example, source code of programming languages, or in configuration files. In this case, the NUL character does not work well as a terminator since it is normally invisible (non-printable) and is difficult to input via a keyboard. Storing the string length would also be inconvenient as manual computation and tracking of

1248-482: Is also called the Kleene closure of Σ {\displaystyle \Sigma } . The notation Σ ω {\displaystyle \Sigma ^{\omega }} indicates the set of all infinite sequences over the alphabet Σ {\displaystyle \Sigma } , and Σ ∞ {\displaystyle \Sigma ^{\infty }} indicates

1300-417: Is commonly referred to as a C string . This representation of an n -character string takes n + 1 space (1 for the terminator), and is thus an implicit data structure . In terminated strings, the terminating code is not an allowable character in any string. Strings with length field do not have this limitation and can also store arbitrary binary data . An example of a null-terminated string stored in

1352-425: Is needed or not, and variable-length strings , whose length is not arbitrarily fixed and which can use varying amounts of memory depending on the actual requirements at run time (see Memory management ). Most strings in modern programming languages are variable-length strings. Of course, even variable-length strings are limited in length – by the size of available computer memory . The string length can be stored as

1404-434: Is often necessary for practical purposes to restrict the symbols in an alphabet so that they are unambiguous when interpreted. For instance, if the two-member alphabet is {00,0}, a string written on paper as "000" is ambiguous because it is unclear if it is a sequence of three "0" symbols, a "00" followed by a "0", or a "0" followed by a "00". If L is a formal language, i.e. a (possibly infinite) set of finite-length strings,

1456-512: The ISO 8859 series. Modern implementations often use the extensive repertoire defined by Unicode along with a variety of complex encodings such as UTF-8 and UTF-16. The term byte string usually indicates a general-purpose string of bytes, rather than strings of only (readable) characters, strings of bits, or such. Byte strings often imply that bytes can take any value and any data can be stored as-is, meaning that there should be no value interpreted as

1508-511: The SNOBOL language of the early 1960s. A string datatype is a datatype modeled on the idea of a formal string. Strings are such an important and useful datatype that they are implemented in nearly every programming language . In some languages they are available as primitive types and in others as composite types . The syntax of most high-level programming languages allows for a string, usually quoted in some way, to represent an instance of

1560-452: The alphabet of L is the set of all symbols that may occur in any string in L . For example, if L is the set of all variable identifiers in the programming language C , L ' s alphabet is the set { a, b, c, ..., x, y, z, A, B, C, ..., X, Y, Z, 0, 1, 2, ..., 7, 8, 9, _ }. Given an alphabet Σ {\displaystyle \Sigma } , the set of all strings of length n {\displaystyle n} over

1612-428: The 34 bits as ( 0o220231 << 17 ) | 0o175473 == 0o110114575473 . A simpler example of the same logic would be how a three-digit BCD number would take up 12 bits, such as 987: 9 8 7 (base 16) 1001 1000 0111 (base 2) , but any such value could be stored in 10 bits directly, saving two bits, such as 987: 3db (base 16) 11 1101 1011 (base 2) . "Squoze" is a facetious past participle of

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1664-563: The alphabet Σ {\displaystyle \Sigma } is indicated by Σ n {\displaystyle \Sigma ^{n}} . The set ⋃ i ∈ N Σ i {\textstyle \bigcup _{i\in \mathbb {N} }\Sigma ^{i}} of all finite strings (regardless of their length) is indicated by the Kleene star operator as Σ ∗ {\displaystyle \Sigma ^{*}} , and

1716-400: The alphabet may be assumed to be the character set of the text to be processed by these algorithms, or a subset of allowable characters from the character set. String (computer science) In computer programming , a string is traditionally a sequence of characters , either as a literal constant or as some kind of variable . The latter may allow its elements to be mutated and

1768-433: The assignment of the seventh bit to (for example) handle ASCII codes. Early microcomputer software relied upon the fact that ASCII codes do not use the high-order bit, and set it to indicate the end of a string. It must be reset to 0 prior to output. The length of a string can also be stored explicitly, for example by prefixing the string with the length as a byte value. This convention is used in many Pascal dialects; as

1820-435: The character value and a length) and Hamming encoding . While these representations are common, others are possible. Using ropes makes certain string operations, such as insertions, deletions, and concatenations more efficient. The core data structure in a text editor is the one that manages the string (sequence of characters) that represents the current state of the file being edited. While that state could be stored in

1872-428: The compositor's pay. Use of the word "string" to mean "a sequence of symbols or linguistic elements in a definite order" emerged from mathematics, symbolic logic , and linguistic theory to speak about the formal behavior of symbolic systems, setting aside the symbols' meaning. For example, logician C. I. Lewis wrote in 1918: A mathematical system is any set of strings of recognisable marks in which some of

1924-507: The fixed-size code units are different from the "characters", the main difficulty currently is incorrectly designed APIs that attempt to hide this difference (UTF-32 does make code points fixed-sized, but these are not "characters" due to composing codes). Some languages, such as C++ , Perl and Ruby , normally allow the contents of a string to be changed after it has been created; these are termed mutable strings. In other languages, such as Java , JavaScript , Lua , Python , and Go ,

1976-430: The implementation is usually hidden , the string must be accessed and modified through member functions. text is a pointer to a dynamically allocated memory area, which might be expanded as needed. See also string (C++) . Both character termination and length codes limit strings: For example, C character arrays that contain null (NUL) characters cannot be handled directly by C string library functions: Strings using

2028-428: The latter case, the length-prefix field itself does not have fixed length, therefore the actual string data needs to be moved when the string grows such that the length field needs to be increased. Here is a Pascal string stored in a 10-byte buffer, along with its ASCII / UTF-8 representation: Many languages, including object-oriented ones, implement strings as records with an internal structure like: However, since

2080-447: The length changed, or it may be fixed (after creation). A string is generally considered as a data type and is often implemented as an array data structure of bytes (or words ) that stores a sequence of elements, typically characters, using some character encoding . String may also denote more general arrays or other sequence (or list ) data types and structures. Depending on the programming language and precise data type used,

2132-407: The length is tedious and error-prone. Two common representations are: While character strings are very common uses of strings, a string in computer science may refer generically to any sequence of homogeneously typed data. A bit string or byte string , for example, may be used to represent non-textual binary data retrieved from a communications medium. This data may or may not be represented by

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2184-436: The logical length of the string (number of characters) differs from the physical length of the array (number of bytes in use). UTF-32 avoids the first part of the problem. The length of a string can be stored implicitly by using a special terminating character; often this is the null character (NUL), which has all bits zero, a convention used and perpetuated by the popular C programming language . Hence, this representation

2236-451: The original assembly language directive used to declare them.) Using a special byte other than null for terminating strings has historically appeared in both hardware and software, though sometimes with a value that was also a printing character. $ was used by many assembler systems, : used by CDC systems (this character had a value of zero), and the ZX80 used " since this was

2288-434: The security of the program accessing the string data. String representations requiring a terminating character are commonly susceptible to buffer overflow problems if the terminating character is not present, caused by a coding error or an attacker deliberately altering the data. String representations adopting a separate length field are also susceptible if the length can be manipulated. In such cases, program code accessing

2340-413: The set Σ ∗ ∪ Σ ω {\displaystyle \Sigma ^{\ast }\cup \Sigma ^{\omega }} of all finite or infinite sequences. For example, using the binary alphabet {0,1}, the strings ε, 0, 1, 00, 01, 10, 11, 000, etc. are all in the Kleene closure of the alphabet (where ε represents the empty string ). Alphabets are important in

2392-777: The six bits normally allocated for each character could store up to 64 states rather than only the 50 states needed to represent the 50 letters of the alphabet, and 50 < 2. Using base 50 already saves a single bit every three characters, so it was used in two three-character chunks. The manual has a formula for encoding six characters ABCDEF: ( A ∗ 50 2 + B ∗ 50 + C ) ∗ 2 17 + ( D ∗ 50 2 + E ∗ 50 + F ) {\displaystyle (A*50^{2}+B*50+C)*2^{17}+(D*50^{2}+E*50+F)} For example "SQUOZE", normally 36 bits: 35 33 37 31 44 17 (base 8) would be encoded in two 17-bit pieces to fit in

2444-497: The string data requires bounds checking to ensure that it does not inadvertently access or change data outside of the string memory limits. String data is frequently obtained from user input to a program. As such, it is the responsibility of the program to validate the string to ensure that it represents the expected format. Performing limited or no validation of user input can cause a program to be vulnerable to code injection attacks. Sometimes, strings need to be embedded inside

2496-499: The string delimiter in its BASIC language. Somewhat similar, "data processing" machines like the IBM 1401 used a special word mark bit to delimit strings at the left, where the operation would start at the right. This bit had to be clear in all other parts of the string. This meant that, while the IBM 1401 had a seven-bit word, almost no-one ever thought to use this as a feature, and override

2548-407: The strings are taken initially and the remainder derived from these by operations performed according to rules which are independent of any meaning assigned to the marks. That a system should consist of 'marks' instead of sounds or odours is immaterial. According to Jean E. Sammet , "the first realistic string handling and pattern matching language" for computers was COMIT in the 1950s, followed by

2600-477: The use of formal languages , automata and semiautomata . In most cases, for defining instances of automata, such as deterministic finite automata (DFAs), it is required to specify an alphabet from which the input strings for the automaton are built. In these applications, an alphabet is usually required to be a finite set , but is not otherwise restricted. When using automata, regular expressions , or formal grammars as part of string-processing algorithms ,

2652-777: The value is fixed and a new string must be created if any alteration is to be made; these are termed immutable strings. Some of these languages with immutable strings also provide another type that is mutable, such as Java and .NET 's StringBuilder , the thread-safe Java StringBuffer , and the Cocoa NSMutableString . There are both advantages and disadvantages to immutability: although immutable strings may require inefficiently creating many copies, they are simpler and completely thread-safe . Strings are typically implemented as arrays of bytes, characters, or code units, in order to allow fast access to individual units or substrings—including characters when they have

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2704-570: The verb 'to squeeze'. The name SQUOZE was later borrowed for similar character encoding schemes used on DEC machines; they had a 40-character alphabet (50 in octal ) and were called DEC RADIX 50 and MOD40 , but sometimes nicknamed DEC Squoze . Alphabet (formal languages) In formal language theory , an alphabet , sometimes called a vocabulary , is a non-empty set of indivisible symbols / characters / glyphs , typically thought of as representing letters, characters, digits, phonemes , or even words. Alphabets in this technical sense of

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