On 03/26/2012 02:39 AM, Gabriel Dos Reis wrote: > True, but should the language definition default to a string type > that is one the most unsuited for text processing in the 21st > century where global multilingualism abounds? Even C has qualms > about that. ... > I have no doubt believing that if all texts my students have to > process are US ASCII, [Char] is more than sufficient. So, I have > sympathy for your position. However, I doubt [Char] would be > adequate if I ask them to shared texts from their diverse cultures.
Uh, while a C char is (usually) just a byte (2^8 bits of information, like
Word8 in Haskell), a Haskell Char is a Unicode character (2^21 bits of
information). A single C char cannot contain arbitrary Unicode character,
while a Haskell Char can, and does. Hence [Char] is (efficiency issues
aside) perfectly adequate for dealing with texts written in arbitrary languages.
Best regards
Christian
[I first accidentally send this just to Gabriel, sorry.]
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|------- Dr. Christian Siefkes ------- christ...@siefkes.net -------
| Homepage: http://www.siefkes.net/ | Blog: http://www.keimform.de/
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