SCM_STRING_CHARS is deprecated. See the manual for alternatives.

[Bruce Korb]

Hi,

I've seen the manual.  For Guile 1.8 it says:

>  -- Macro: char * SCM_STRING_CHARS (SCM X)
>  -- Macro: char * SCM_SYMBOL_CHARS (SCM X)
>      Return a pointer to the characters of X.  The result is undefined
>      if X is not a symbol or string, respectively.
>
>    There are also a few magic values stuffed into memory before a
> symbol's characters, but you don't want to know about those.  What
> cruft!
>
>    Note that `SCM_VECTOR_BASE', `SCM_STRING_CHARS' and
> `SCM_SYMBOL_CHARS' return pointers to data within the respective
> object.  Care must be taken that the object is not garbage collected
> while that data is still being accessed.  This is the same as for a
> smob, *Note Remembering During Operations::.


Here's the deal:  I just want access to the array of characters.
I've never presumed the characters are NUL terminated.  Now,
I am getting this message and the code itself says:

> static SCM
> make_stringbuf (size_t len)
> {
>   /* XXX - for the benefit of SCM_STRING_CHARS, SCM_SYMBOL_CHARS and
>      scm_i_symbol_chars, all stringbufs are null-terminated.  Once
>      SCM_STRING_CHARS and SCM_SYMBOL_CHARS are removed and the code
>      has been changed for scm_i_symbol_chars, this null-termination
>      can be dropped.
>   */

Unfortunately, it seems to take a lot of grubbing around in the
source code to find out how to do this.  I am completely aware of
the fact that any call to any Guile function can invalidate an
address gotten via this mechanism.  However, with a single threaded
program and without making such a call, I know the address will
remain valid.  I want it.  It saves a lot of allocate, copy & free
bother.  Thank you!  Regards, bruce