What does "string" mean?

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2

String in English means line.

  • What this has to do with programming strings?

  • Why do they call themselves that?

  • 2

    Thinking, "line" is the only translation of string? In all contexts or only in a few specific ones?

  • 1

    The Macmillan can help in this...

  • 6

    It’s called string because formerly each letter was a plate that was painted and used in the printer. Between one print and another these plates needed to dry and for that they left them hanging on ropes (strings). When he was going to make a new impression, the printer operator ordered his assistant to search for a certain string "bring me the X string" and the expression "Bring me the string X" ended up becoming popular, understanding string as a set of letters

  • 'Cause you didn’t put that as an answer?

  • 2

    @Ninjatroll because it does not explain what you asked is just an interesting curiosity. If it answered you would accept as correct answer?

  • 1

    And it may or may not be true. Without reliable sources we will never know.

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    I think the @Woss comment answered the second question more clearly, although I would not say "a set of letters", but rather "a set of characters", because a string can contain numbers, spaces or another character, which are not letters.

  • I agree, I think @Maniero should edit the question and add this

  • 1

    And to what extent is information without reliable sources valid? Beautiful words arranged in a well-constructed sequence does not make the information true.

  • But at least it’s worth mentioning the information, and even though it might not be true I imagine there’s a good chance it’s true

  • 7

    I made up this story only to show that a conclusion that seeks to confirm the premise always seems true. The problem occurs when the premise is not valid, which makes the conclusion wrong. It is an error of methodology in which it seeks to confirm the premises and not the facts.

  • ? I didn’t understand, but I had already researched the subject and found a story like

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    @Ninjatroll pole so we can see where there was something like this. Did you notice that you just confirmed what Woss said, and that’s why your questions have been misplaced? You start from a wrong premise and then you want it to be true anyway. This saved but it was clear that she already had a false premise, maybe it should have been closed, you do not ask questions to learn something but to confirm what you want, even if it is a mistake. You complicate your situation. Maybe for this reason the answer has negative, it was given based on false premise.

  • 3

    You start from the premise that there is a relationship between strings in programming and lines. I just made up a story that satisfies your premise and that’s why it’s true, because it’s the justification you wanted to read, whether it’s true or not. An improved version of your serious question "Why are strings called like this? Is there any relation to the meaning of the English word?". It may look very similar to yours, but it changes the context of the question completely.

  • https://www.sitepoint.com/why-is-a-string-called-a-string/, https://stackoverflow.com/questions/4401975/why-are-strings-called-strings, https://stackoverflow.com/questions/880195/the-history-behind-the-definition-of-a-string

  • 1

    The question is quite interesting, however I must point out that although the programming is not in fact about this, the question seems to me that it would fit the https://english.stackexchange.com/, because see in this way, the term string does not mean LINE, in a simple translation can even lead to this, but imagine the phrase "a string of Islands" refers to a sequence or series of islands, another example " a string of rigorous budgets" (series of rigorous budgets), ie it is not always so "to the letter". Are just examples.

  • 2

    Note that a 2009 question existing in Soen does not necessarily mean the kind of question fit the context, often old questions are kept, even though today they are no longer accepted, only pq had a large number of accesses and are too old to migrate to another site of the network (a limitation of the system)

  • Other related answers: https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/43329/etymology-of-string, https://www.quora.com/Why-are-strings-called-strings-in-programming

  • 2

    None of these links confirm anything close to the story invented by Woss.

  • I didn’t say they confirmed it, I just said I saw something like

  • According to Merriam-Webster a string is a series of something online. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/string <a string of Cars> or <a string of Names> .

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1 answer

10

The translation or even expression in English may have several meanings and I have not seen "line" at all that I had access to. The most common is rope or some variation of this. A possible translation that is usually borrowed for this programming mechanism is a string of lines, or interlaced lines, which is the definition of string. In some contexts the line may not be the focus and the chain of something takes place. In this case it is a character string, chain in the sense of several things chained (as in mountain chain), not prison.

So string is a sequence of characters, is a way to designate a collection of heterogeneous data with a special meaning and widely used in codes. So the value that makes up any text has that name, and often the type of object that has that information is also called string or String in some languages.

Some languages have specific formats, but the rule is to be a string or Character string to be more complete.

  • 5

    I wanted to understand why someone would deny this kind of answer. she succinctly answers what was questioned

  • 3

    @Denisrudneidesouza most of the negatives that moderators receive is due to revenge by closed question or moderation that contradicts the moderate’s feelings. I am not saying that this is the case, but if you do the query to get the user (thing I advise against because it gives heartburn and generates conflict know who has negatived us) But usually if I ask negative questions and answers from Maniero and Bacco you’ll probably find a history of closed questions.

  • 1

    Yes, I commented more to provoke the kind of people who do this, it is easy to negatively and disappear after without explanation, even if the answer was bad, but there is no reason for it, negative in my view is to signal bad content

  • 3

    And as a moderator I will not give details, but we know when this happens, and it often ends up going by so as not to look like the moderator who goes after the person. The inconsistency of this particular negative is almost unbelievable.

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