Editing String (computer science) (section)

==== Other representations ====
Both character termination and length codes limit strings: For example, C character arrays that contain null (NUL) characters cannot be handled directly by [[C string handling|C string]] library functions: Strings using a length code are limited to the maximum value of the length code.

Both of these limitations can be overcome by clever programming.

It is possible to create data structures and functions that manipulate them that do not have the problems associated with character termination and can in principle overcome length code bounds. It is also possible to optimize the string represented using techniques from [[Run-length encoding|run length encoding]] (replacing repeated characters by the character value and a length) and [[Hamming coding|Hamming encoding]]{{ clarify | date = June 2015 | reason = did you mean Huffman compression? Or do we need a few more words about error correction coding here? I don't see how either one helps us find out how long the string is. }}.

While these representations are common, others are possible. Using [[Rope (data structure)|rope]]s makes certain string operations, such as insertions, deletions, and concatenations more efficient.

The core data structure in a [[text editor]] is the one that manages the string (sequence of characters) that represents the current state of the file being edited.
While that state could be stored in a single long consecutive array of characters, a typical text editor instead uses an alternative representation as its sequence data structure—a [[gap buffer]], a [[linked list]] of lines, a [[piece table]], or a [[Rope (data structure)|rope]]—which makes certain string operations, such as insertions, deletions, and undoing previous edits, more efficient.<ref>
Charles Crowley.
[http://www.cs.unm.edu/~crowley/papers/sds.pdf "Data Structures for Text Sequences"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304042917/https://www.cs.unm.edu/~crowley/papers/sds.pdf |date=2016-03-04 }}.
Section
[http://www.cs.unm.edu/~crowley/papers/sds/node1.html "Introduction"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160404020539/http://www.cs.unm.edu/~crowley/papers/sds/node1.html |date=2016-04-04 }}.
</ref>