On Tue, 1 Jun 2010 13:05:16 +0200 (CEST)
Michael Van Canneyt <mich...@freepascal.org> wrote:
[...]
Thank you for all answers (all is now clear for me :-).
> > * If a programmer explicitely assigns an existing string to a new variable,
> > the intent is precisely copy-semantics, to make them independent for
> > further changes. If there is no change, there is also no reason for such an
> > assignment.
>
> This is not correct. Many strings are simply referenced several times.
May I ask in which typical cases? (I can easily find examples of strings _used_
several times, eg concatenated into larger strings and/or output, but this does
not make new references.)
Can only think at the special case of loop variables:
for i:=0 to persons.count do begin
name := persons[i].name;
-- do something with name w/o changing it --
end;
I find this question (from a larger point of view than strings only) very
interesting. Some newer languages, such as Clojure, introduce reference
semantics while basically preserving basic value immutability: a different
approach. (I do not mean one is better than the other; instead try to
understand why either is prefered by some language designers.)
Denis
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