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String operations.
Given a string s of length l, we call character number in s the index of a character in s. Indexes start at 0, and we will call a character number valid in s if it falls within the range [0...l-1]. A position is the point between two characters or at the beginning or end of the string. We call a position valid in s if it falls within the range [0...l]. Note that character number n is between positions n and n+1.
Two parameters start and len are said to designate a valid substring of s if len >= 0 and start and start+len are valid positions in s.
OCaml strings can be modified in place, for instance via the String.set and String.blit functions described below. This possibility should be used rarely and with much care, however, since both the OCaml compiler and most OCaml libraries share strings as if they were immutable, rather than copying them. In particular, string literals are shared: a single copy of the string is created at program loading time and returned by all evaluations of the string literal. Consider for example:
# let f () = "foo";;
val f : unit -> string = <fun>
# (f ()).[0] <- 'b';;
-: unit = ()
# f ();;
-: string = "boo"
Likewise, many functions from the standard library can return string literals or one of their string arguments. Therefore, the returned strings must not be modified directly. If mutation is absolutely necessary, it should be performed on a fresh copy of the string, as produced by String.copy.
If you're going to do a lot of string slicing, BatSubstring might be a useful module to represent slices of strings, as it doesn't allocate new strings on every operation.
author Xavier Leroy (base library)
author Nicolas Cannasse
author David Teller
author Edgar Friendly
val init : int ->(int -> char)-> string
init l f returns the string of length l with the chars f 0 , f 1 , f 2 ... f (l-1).
Example: String.init 256 char_of_int
val is_empty : string -> bool
is_empty s returns true if s is the empty string, false otherwise.
Usually a tad faster than comparing s with "".
Example (for some string s): if String.is_empty s then "(Empty)" else s
val length : string -> int
Return the length (number of characters) of the given string.
val get : string ->int -> char
String.get s n returns character number n in string s. You can also write s.[n] instead of String.get s n.
if start and len do not designate a valid substring of s.
val blit : string ->int ->Bytes.t->int ->int -> unit
String.blit src srcoff dst dstoff len copies len characters from string src, starting at character number srcoff, to the byte sequence dst, starting at character number dstoff.
if srcoff and len do not designate a valid substring of src, or if dstoff and len do not designate a valid substring of dst.
val concat : string ->string list-> string
String.concat sep sl concatenates the list of strings sl, inserting the separator string sep between each.
val iter : (char -> unit)->string -> unit
String.iter f s applies function f in turn to all the characters of s. It is equivalent to f s.[0]; f s.[1]; ...; f s.[String.length s - 1]; ().
val mapi : (int ->char -> char)->string -> string
String.mapi f s calls f with each character of s and its index (in increasing index order) and stores the results in a new string that is returned.
since 4.02.0
val escaped : string -> string
Return a copy of the argument, with special characters represented by escape sequences, following the lexical conventions of OCaml. If there is no special character in the argument, return the original string itself, not a copy. Its inverse function is Scanf.unescaped.
val index : string ->char -> int
String.index s c returns the character number of the first occurrence of character c in string s.
String.rindex_opt s c returns the index of the last occurrence of character c in string s, or None if c does not occur in s.
since 2.7.0
val index_from : string ->int ->char -> int
String.index_from s i c returns the character number of the first occurrence of character c in string s after or at position i. String.index s c is equivalent to String.index_from s 0 c.
val index_from_opt : string ->int ->char ->int option
String.index_from_opt s i c returns the index of the first occurrence of character c in string s after position i or None if c does not occur in s after position i.
String.index_opt s c is equivalent to String.index_from_opt s 0 c. Raise Invalid_argument if i is not a valid position in s.
since 2.7.0
val rindex_from : string ->int ->char -> int
String.rindex_from s i c returns the character number of the last occurrence of character c in string s before position i+1. String.rindex s c is equivalent to String.rindex_from s (String.length s - 1) c.
val rindex_from_opt : string ->int ->char ->int option
String.rindex_from_opt s i c returns the index of the last occurrence of character c in string s before position i+1 or None if c does not occur in s before position i+1.
String.rindex_opt s c is equivalent to String.rindex_from_opt s (String.length s - 1) c.
Raise Invalid_argument if i+1 is not a valid position in s.
since 2.7.0
val index_after_n : char ->int ->string -> int
index_after_n chr n str returns the index of the character that comes immediately after the n-th occurrence of chr in str.
Occurrences are numbered from 1: n = 1 returns the index of the character located immediately after the first occurrence of chr.
n = 0 always returns 0.
If the n-th occurrence of chr is the last character of str, returns the length of str.
if there are strictly less than n occurrences of chr in str.
since 2.9.0
val contains : string ->char -> bool
String.contains s c tests if character c appears in the string s.
val contains_from : string ->int ->char -> bool
String.contains_from s start c tests if character c appears in s after position start. String.contains s c is equivalent to String.contains_from s 0 c.
if stop < 0 or stop+1 is not a valid position in s.
val uppercase : string -> string
Return a copy of the argument, with all lowercase letters translated to uppercase, including accented letters of the ISO Latin-1 (8859-1) character set.
val lowercase : string -> string
Return a copy of the argument, with all uppercase letters translated to lowercase, including accented letters of the ISO Latin-1 (8859-1) character set.
val capitalize : string -> string
Return a copy of the argument, with the first character set to uppercase.
val uncapitalize : string -> string
Return a copy of the argument, with the first character set to lowercase.
val uppercase_ascii : string -> string
Return a copy of the argument, with all lowercase letters translated to uppercase, using the US-ASCII character set.
since 2.5.0
val lowercase_ascii : string -> string
Return a copy of the argument, with all uppercase letters translated to lowercase, using the US-ASCII character set.
since 2.5.0
val capitalize_ascii : string -> string
Return a copy of the argument, with the first character set to uppercase, using the US-ASCII character set.
since 2.5.0
val uncapitalize_ascii : string -> string
Return a copy of the argument, with the first character set to lowercase, using the US-ASCII character set.
if the string does not represent an integer. This follows OCaml's int literal rules, so "0x" prefixes hexadecimal integers, "0o" for octal and "0b" for binary. Underscores within the number are allowed for readability but ignored.
if the string does not represent a float. Decimal points aren't required in the given string, as they are for float literals in OCaml, but otherwise the rules for float literals apply.
fold_left f a s is f (... (f (f a s.[0]) s.[1]) ...) s.[n-1]
Examples: String.fold_left (fun li c -> c::li) [] "foo" = ['o';'o';'f']String.fold_left max 'a' "apples" = 's'
val fold_lefti : ('a->int ->char ->'a)->'a->string ->'a
As fold_left, but with the index of the element as additional argument
since 2.3.0
val fold_right : (char ->'a->'a)->string ->'a->'a
fold_right f s b is f s.[0] (f s.[1] (... (f s.[n-1] b) ...))
Examples: String.fold_right List.cons "foo" [] = ['f';'o';'o']String.fold_right (fun c a -> if c = ' ' then a+1 else a) "a b c" 0 = 2
val fold_righti : (int ->char ->'a->'a)->string ->'a->'a
As fold_right, but with the index of the element as additional argument
since 2.3.0
val filter : (char -> bool)->string -> string
filter f s returns a copy of string s in which only characters c such that f c = true remain.
Example: String.filter ((<>) ' ') "a b c" = "abc"
val filter_map : (char ->char option)->string -> string
filter_map f s calls (f a0) (f a1).... (f an) where a0..an are the characters of s. It returns the string of characters ci such as f ai = Some ci (when f returns None, the corresponding element of s is discarded).
Example: String.filter_map (function 'a'..'z' as c -> Some (Char.uppercase c) | _ -> None) "a b c" = "ABC"
val iteri : (int ->char -> unit)->string -> unit
String.iteri f s is equivalent to f 0 s.[0]; f 1 s.[1]; ...; f len s.[len] where len is length of string s. Example:
let letter_positions word =
let positions = Array.make 256 [] in
let count_letter pos c =
positions.(int_of_char c) <- pos :: positions.(int_of_char c) in
String.iteri count_letter word;
Array.mapi (fun c pos -> (char_of_int c, List.rev pos)) positions
|> Array.to_list
|> List.filter (fun (c,pos) -> pos <> [])
in
letter_positions "hello" = ['e',[1]; 'h',[0]; 'l',[2;3]; 'o',[4] ]
Finding
val find : string ->string -> int
find s x returns the starting index of the first occurrence of string x within string s.
Note This implementation is optimized for short strings.
rfind_from s pos x behaves as rfind s x but starts searching from the right at position pos + 1. rfind s x is equivalent to rfind_from s (String.length s - 1) x.
Beware, it search between the beginning of the string to the position pos + 1, not between pos + 1 and the end.
Returns the same string but without the leading and trailing whitespaces (according to BatChar.is_whitespace).
Example: String.trim " \t foo\n " = "foo"
val quote : string -> string
Add quotes around a string and escape any quote or escape appearing in that string. This function is used typically when you need to generate source code from a string.
More precisely, the returned string conforms to the OCaml syntax: if printed, it outputs a representation of the input string as an OCaml string litteral.
val left : string ->int -> string
left r len returns the string containing the len first characters of r. If r contains less than len characters, it returns r.
val replace_chars : (char -> string)->string -> string
replace_chars f s returns a string where all chars c of s have been replaced by the string returned by f c.
Example: String.replace_chars (function ' ' -> "(space)" | c -> String.of_char c) "foo bar" = "foo(space)bar"
val replace : str:string ->sub:string ->by:string -> bool * string
replace ~str ~sub ~by returns a tuple consisting of a boolean and a string where the first occurrence of the string sub within str has been replaced by the string by. The boolean is true if a substitution has taken place.
val nreplace : str:string ->sub:string ->by:string -> string
nreplace ~str ~sub ~by returns a string obtained by iteratively replacing each occurrence of sub by by in str, from right to left. It returns a copy of str if sub has no occurrence in str.
rev_in_place s mutates the byte sequence s, so that its new value is the mirror of its old one: for instance if s contained "Example!", after the mutation it will contain "!elpmaxE".
String.split_on_char sep s returns the list of all (possibly empty) substrings of s that are delimited by the sep character.
The function's output is specified by the following invariants:
The list is not empty.
Concatenating its elements using sep as a separator returns a string equal to the input (String.concat (String.make 1 sep)
(String.split_on_char sep s) = s).
No string in the result contains the sep character.
Note: prior to 2.11.0 split_on_char _ "" used to return an empty list.
nsplit s sep splits the string s into a list of strings which are separated by sep (excluded). nsplit "" _ returns a single empty string. Note: prior to 2.11.0 nsplit "" _ used to return an empty list.
val slice : ?first:int ->?last:int ->string -> string
slice ?first ?last s returns a "slice" of the string which corresponds to the characters s.[first], s.[first+1], ..., s[last-1]. Note that the character at index last is not included! If first is omitted it defaults to the start of the string, i.e. index 0, and if last is omitted is defaults to point just past the end of s, i.e. length s. Thus, slice s is equivalent to copy s.
Negative indexes are interpreted as counting from the end of the string. For example, slice ~last:(-2) s will return the string s, but without the last two characters.
This function never raises any exceptions. If the indexes are out of bounds they are automatically clipped.
Example: String.slice ~first:1 ~last:(-3) " foo bar baz" = "foo bar "
val splice : string ->int ->int ->string -> string
String.splice s off len rep cuts out the section of s indicated by off and len and replaces it by rep
Negative indexes are interpreted as counting from the end of the string. If off+len is greater than length s, the end of the string is used, regardless of the value of len.
If len is zero or negative, rep is inserted at position off without replacing any of s.
Example: String.splice "foo bar baz" 3 5 "XXX" = "fooXXXbaz"
val explode : string ->char list
explode s returns the list of characters in the string s.
Example: String.explode "foo" = ['f'; 'o'; 'o']
val implode : char list-> string
implode cs returns a string resulting from concatenating the characters in the list cs.
The comparison function for strings, with the same specification as Pervasives.compare. Along with the type t, this function compare allows the module String to be passed as argument to the functors Set.Make and Map.Make.
Example: String.compare "FOO" "bar" = -1 i.e. "FOO" < "bar"
Compare two strings, sorting "abc32def" before "abc210abc".
Algorithm: splits both strings into lists of (strings of digits) or (strings of non digits) (["abc"; "32"; "def"] and ["abc"; "210"; "abc"]) Then both lists are compared lexicographically by comparing elements numerically when both are numbers or lexicographically in other cases.