{"action":"created","issue":{"url":"https://api.github.com/repos/JuliaLang/julia/issues/11030","labels_url":"https://api.github.com/repos/JuliaLang/julia/issues/11030/labels{/name}","comments_url":"https://api.github.com/repos/JuliaLang/julia/issues/11030/comments","events_url":"https://api.github.com/repos/JuliaLang/julia/issues/11030/events","html_url":"https://github.com/JuliaLang/julia/issues/11030","id":71328866,"number":11030,"title":"Taking string concatenation seriously, or, a proposal to deprecate *, ^ for string concatenation and repetition","user":{"login":"quinnj","id":2896623,"avatar_url":"https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/2896623?v=3","gravatar_id":"","url":"https://api.github.com/users/quinnj","html_url":"https://github.com/quinnj","followers_url":"https://api.github.com/users/quinnj/followers","following_url":"https://api.github.com/users/quinnj/following{/other_user}","gists_url":"https://api.github.com/users/quinnj/gists{/gist_id}","starred_url":"https://api.github.com/users/quinnj/starred{/owner}{/repo}","subscriptions_url":"https://api.github.com/users/quinnj/subscriptions","organizations_url":"https://api.github.com/users/quinnj/orgs","repos_url":"https://api.github.com/users/quinnj/repos","events_url":"https://api.github.com/users/quinnj/events{/privacy}","received_events_url":"https://api.github.com/users/quinnj/received_events","type":"User","site_admin":false},"labels":[],"state":"open","locked":false,"assignee":null,"milestone":null,"comments":156,"created_at":"2015-04-27T15:58:50Z","updated_at":"2015-06-10T20:33:37Z","closed_at":null,"body":"The frequency and vehemency of discussions around this subject beg for a change. `*` and `^` were introduced for strings back when the language wasn't as strict on operator punning and overall meaning.\r\n\r\nAs a first, step, I propose we deprecate these two methods for string operations.\r\n\r\nAs a next discussion, we can talk about the possibility of using a different operator(s) for concatenation/repetition. Just using `repeat`, with no operator, has been suggested, as well as the following for string concatenation:\r\n\r\n* `++`, as a general sequence concatenation operator\r\n* `..`, similar to Lua\r\n\r\nThings to consider:\r\n* Would the same operator apply to other concatenation operations like vectors or multi-dimensional arrays? In that case, how would it interact with `vcat`/`hcat`?"},"comment":{"url":"https://api.github.com/repos/JuliaLang/julia/issues/comments/110903903","html_url":"https://github.com/JuliaLang/julia/issues/11030#issuecomment-110903903","issue_url":"https://api.github.com/repos/JuliaLang/julia/issues/11030","id":110903903,"user":{"login":"tknopp","id":3109172,"avatar_url":"https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/3109172?v=3","gravatar_id":"","url":"https://api.github.com/users/tknopp","html_url":"https://github.com/tknopp","followers_url":"https://api.github.com/users/tknopp/followers","following_url":"https://api.github.com/users/tknopp/following{/other_user}","gists_url":"https://api.github.com/users/tknopp/gists{/gist_id}","starred_url":"https://api.github.com/users/tknopp/starred{/owner}{/repo}","subscriptions_url":"https://api.github.com/users/tknopp/subscriptions","organizations_url":"https://api.github.com/users/tknopp/orgs","repos_url":"https://api.github.com/users/tknopp/repos","events_url":"https://api.github.com/users/tknopp/events{/privacy}","received_events_url":"https://api.github.com/users/tknopp/received_events","type":"User","site_admin":false},"created_at":"2015-06-10T20:33:37Z","updated_at":"2015-06-10T20:33:37Z","body":"This issue should be driven by practical experience rather than from an academic point of view. In the last years there were never a lot of discussions about `*` being the wrong thing. Why is there suddenly a problem?\r\n\r\nIn principle I would be fine with `+` but I don't see that there is enough justification that `+` would be better.\r\n\r\nThe use of `*` is by the way quite common in theoretical computer science (formal grammars). Here `*` with the empty string \"\" form a monoid."}}