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Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2012 16:41:30 +0200
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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] mbstring, a proposition of additional functions
From: ivan.enderlin@hoa-project.net ("Ivan Enderlin @ Hoa")

Hi,

I sent this email during this summer and nobody replied. I would like to =

know your opinion.


On 06/08/12 21:54, Ivan Enderlin @ Hoa wrote:
> Hello,
>
> ext/mbstring is very useful, but from my point of view, some functions =

> are missing.
> I would like to propose the addition of the following functions.
>
> mb_append($str, $piece) and mb_prepend($str, $piece):
> To add a $piece to, respectively, the end and the start of $string. It =

> should consider the text direction, e.g. if $str is Right-to-Left,=20
> mb_append() will add $piece to the end, so the left, of $string.
>
> mb_concat($str, $piece):
> If mb_append() and mb_prepend() are too hard to understand by users,=20
> mb_concat() would be pretty much simpler and will act in the same way.
I would insert:
mb_replace($str, $search, $replace):
Complementary to str_replace and less simpler than preg_replace or=20
preg_filter (and with better performance because it does not need to=20
compile regex to automata etc.).

> mb_pad($length, $piece, $end):
> Pretty much like strpad but with multi-bytes considering.
> Note that, like mb_append and mb_prepend, we do not speak about left=20
> and right, but start and end.
>
> mb_get_direction($str):
> Return LTR or RTL. For one char, it is =93easy=94. For a string, it is =

> more complex because we can have embedding directions (a string with=20
> many directions).
>
> mb_get_char($code) or mb_chr($code):
> Get Unicode character from a code-point/decimal value representation.
>
> mb_get_code($char) or mb_ord($char):
> Get code-point/decimal value representation from of Unicode character.
>
> Finally, it would be great if mb_substr() could consider text=20
> direction (or create a new dedicated function?). For example,=20
> mb_substr($str, 0, 1) will return the first char from the start (and=20
> not the left as it is implemented now).
>
> I think it could help developers to create nice libraries without=20
> requiring a lot of skills in Unicode.
> Thoughts?
>
> Best regards :-).

Recently, I crafted a String object that support most of the=20
propositions written here. Please, see=20
https://github.com/hoaproject/String (file String.php). The code is very =

simple (it implies that it do not need a lot of work to implement it in=20
PHP I hope). Some interesting methods:
     =95 append;
     =95 prepend;
     =95 pad;
     =95 getIterator (equivalent of str_split);
     =95 \ArrayAccess methods (with support of out-of-bound indexes);
     =95 getByteAt (with support of out-of-bound indexes);
     =95 getCharDirection;
     =95 fromCode;
     =95 toCode.

Hope this helps :-),
Best regards.

--=20
Ivan Enderlin
Developer of Hoa
http://hoa.42/ or http://hoa-project.net/

PhD. student at DISC/Femto-ST (Vesontio) and INRIA (Cassis)
http://disc.univ-fcomte.fr/ and http://www.inria.fr/

Member of HTML and WebApps Working Group of W3C
http://w3.org/