Is there a specific reason there is no `fun String...

# squarelibraries

[mbonnin]

Is there a specific reason there is no fun String.source(): Source like there is fun File.source(): Source ?

// This works
File(path).source().buffer()
// This doesn't
"Hello World".source().buffer()

[mbonnin]

Writing Buffer().write("Hello World") works but it breaks the typing flow

[jw]

Well for one a string is not a source of bytes it's a source of characters

[jw]

So you'd need an encoding step or at minimum to specify the charset for encoding

[mbonnin]

I'm ok with fun String.source(charset: Charset = Charsets.UTF_8): Source

[mbonnin]

Also had a similar question for ByteString.source()

[mbonnin]

And Charset is not MPP, I see...

[mbonnin]

I'd still use String.utf8Source() and ByteString.source()

[jw]

Generally the thought is that things which are sources of data and not data itself have the extension

[mbonnin]

Fair enough. Something else I realized is that Strings and ByteStrings can be reused while Sources can't so I guess not having the extension highlights that behaviour

[jessewilson]

I'm reluctant to do this cause I don't like APIs where you need to change syntax when you add complexity

[mbonnin]

What kind of complexity are you thinking of?

[jessewilson]

For example here, once we can convert a string to a Source, if you grow your string things get ugly...

val s = """1\n2\n3\n"""
return s.toSource()

That's your ideal case, but then we refactor some:

val s = buildString {
  for (i in 1..3)
    append(i.toString())
    append("\n")
  }
}
return s.toSource()

In general the 2nd example performs terribly compared to building a Buffer. It allocates lots of intermediate Strings and then needs to UTF-8 transcode to go back into bytes. Optimal here is where the more verbose API leads you:

return Buffer().apply {
   for (i in 1..3)
     writeDecimalLong(i)
     writeUtf8("\n")
   }
 }

[mbonnin]

Ah yes, thanks! That makes sense.

[mbonnin]

Asking because I have an API that works with BufferedSource mainly and that provides convenience overloads to work with String and ByteString and it's a bit painful to define these overloads everywhere...

[mbonnin]

But maybe the overloads aren't that used. I'll double check

[jw]

We generally have one overload

[jw]

For example, Moshi takes a String or BufferedSource but not ByteString

[jw]

Wire takes a byte[] or BufferedSource