GNU bug report logs - #43598
replace-in-string: finishing touches

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From: Mattias Engdegård <mattiase <at> acm.org>
To: Richard Stallman <rms <at> gnu.org>
Cc: Lars Ingebrigtsen <larsi <at> gnus.org>, 43598 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: bug#43598: replace-in-string: finishing touches
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 2020 11:40:02 +0200

28 sep. 2020 kl. 05.41 skrev Richard Stallman <rms <at> gnu.org>:

> It is paradoxical, but I think it is correct.
> Equal compares the type of the string, not just the
> characters in it.

No it doesn't. (equal (string-to-multibyte "A") "A") => t.

There is no deep reason for the current behaviour. It's just how things came to be, and nobody has been sufficiently annoyed to change it. The implementation is efficient and good enough for most purposes.

It is inconsistent and confusing though, and occasionally it does break down. One such case is when two strings that are not 'equal' become 'equal' after printing and reading them back, since unibyte and multibyte strings have the same printed representation. This can arise in conjunction with byte compilation.

Again, I have no plans to do anything about it right now.

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