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Research draft

string

vr.tr.string-q184754 · XCT.QLT

Let an agent handle strings by encoding, length, operations, validation and security.

Thing Registry Cross-cutting context

Research draft, second pass

A second pass drafted this model: the structure a model of this thing needs, and what is known about it in the world. The line under this one says how the second half was obtained - researched against sources, or recalled without web access, in which case nothing here was read anywhere and every claim is a lead to verify. Unreviewed either way.

written by Claude from model knowledge without web access - no source was read, every claim is a lead to verify

Researched by: Claude

Purpose and description

Let an agent handle strings by encoding, length, operations, validation and security.

In computing and formal languages, a finite sequence of characters or symbols, such as text, identifiers, codes and status messages, handled as a data type with an encoding and length.

What it is for: Storing and processing text and symbolic data.

It can be compare and search strings; validate formats; normalise and encode text; escape strings safely.

Distinguishing features

Ordered sequence of characters

Has encoding and length

Immutable in many languages

Unsafe handling causes injection flaws

What it looks like

Text between quotes in code, or fields in data.

How it is recognised

Quoted text in code

Encodings such as UTF-8

Identifiers and codes stored as strings

Related models

is a kind of - category

sequence and data type

is encoded in - encoding

Unicode and UTF-8

is processed by - operations

algorithm

is confused with - another sense

string (cord)

In practice

Families and kinds

text strings

byte strings

identifiers and codes

formal language strings

regular expression patterns

Standards and regulation

Unicode Standard

RFC 3629 UTF-8

OWASP guidance on input handling

Failure modes and hazards

Encoding errors

Injection vulnerabilities

Normalisation mismatches in comparisons

Also called

vehicle keeper markingghost wordIEC 60086 electrochemical system codealphanumeric identifierstatus codenominal numberIEC 60086 cylindrical battery size codearXiv IDJSIC codeversion numberFanza AV actress IDFEIN-Kodierungtrain reporting numberInternational Portable Equipment Identitymodexbuild numbername without diacritical marksISDS identifierRDF lexical formYouTube video IDHTTP header field nameHTTP header field valueUnicode stringSoundCloud identifierLinkedIn personal profile IDUniform Resource Identifier authoritystring in JavaScriptwiki.gg article IDFacebook page IDPodLink IDpseudowordMQWW poet IDMQWW work IDNKC IDgrammatical constructionnon-wordSystème d’identification du répertoire des entreprisesdelimitersuperpermutationmonolingual text

+68

Where this came from

wikidata · CC0 1.0

Also registered as vr.tr.string-artifact

Drafted structure

Bundle to layer to finding to question, as the second pass will find it: 4 bundles · 8 layers · 8 findings · 16 questions.

Representation Encoding.

Encoding decides meaning.

Encoding

UTF-8 and others.

Encoding

Encoding.

  1. Which encoding is used? definition
  2. Is it declared? boundary

Length

Characters or bytes.

Length

Length.

  1. Is length counted in bytes, code points or grapheme clusters? definition
  2. Does that matter here? boundary
Operations Processing.

Operations need care.

Compare

Equality.

Compare

Comparison.

  1. Should strings be normalised before comparison? boundary
  2. Is comparison case-sensitive? definition

Search

Patterns.

Search

Searching.

  1. Which pattern or algorithm finds matches? definition
  2. How fast is it? measurement
Security Safe handling.

Strings carry attacks.

Escaping

Injection.

Escaping

Escaping.

  1. Is the string escaped for its output context? boundary
  2. Are parameterised queries used? boundary

Validation

Formats.

Validation

Validation.

  1. Is the string validated against the expected format? boundary
  2. What happens on failure? action
Data Identifiers.

Many identifiers are strings.

Identifiers

Codes.

Identifiers

Identifier strings.

  1. Should this identifier be stored as a string to keep leading zeros? boundary
  2. What is its format? definition

Senses

Disambiguation.

Senses

Other senses.

  1. Is a cord, a musical string or string theory meant? boundary
  2. Which entry fits? action

What the second pass must settle

  • Should string types be separate entries?
  • How should encodings be linked?
  • How should the cord sense be split off?