Hi internals! PHP 7 uses two different string types. One is the ordinary C string char*, the other is a custom zend_string* structure, which additionally embeds length and GC info.
We currently have a bunch of APIs that accept either C strings or zend_strings, but the naming is pretty much random wrt str/string usage. Examples: * The main zend_string API is prefixed with zend_string_ * The smart string API for zend_strings uses the name smart_str, whereas the smart string API for C strings uses smart_string. To add insult to injury in PHP 5 smart_str was the one for C strings. * The hash API uses _str to denote APIs that accept C strings instead of zend_strings * ZVAL_STR is used for zend_strings, while ZVAL_STRING is for C strings * zend_str_tolower works on C strings, whereas zend_string_tolower is for zend_strings * ... many more Basically if you have two APIs, one using str, the other using string, you can't tell which one is for C strings and which one is for zend_strings. It could be either way. It would be nice to have a convention for this and stick with it. E.g. "string" is for zend_strings and "str" for C strings. Or maybe be more explicit and use "cstr" for C strings. (For symmetry the zend_string type could become zstr.) Thanks, Nikita
