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in reply to Re^3: How to reverse a (Unicode) string
in thread How to reverse a (Unicode) string

I hesitated before writing about the byte level, but S02 explictly mentions it:

You can also ask for the total string length of an array's elements, in bytes, codepoints or graphemes, using these methods .bytes, .codes or .graphs respectively on the array. The same methods apply to strings as well.

And of course you have a byte level if you specify an encoding, or if there is a default one. Just like you can have a language dependent notion of a grapheme if you pick a language.

But I think the spec should be a bit clearer regarding how the character encoding is chosen.

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Re^5: How to reverse a (Unicode) string
by Juerd (Abbot) on Jan 10, 2008 at 21:42 UTC

    The way I expect it to work, is that Unicode strings don't get encodings, but byte buffers and I/O handles do. If you give a Buf an encoding, you can treat it as a Str, as long as the encoding is consistent. Using a real Str may perform much better, because Perl 6 can encode it internally however it wishes, and can make many more assumptions (for optimization purposes).

    Giving a Unicode string an "encoding" property is the wrong way around, but it can take quite some time and experience before one realises that.