[fpc-devel] Performance of string handling in trunk

[Hans-Peter Diettrich]

Michael Schnell schrieb:
> 
>> 2) Nothing is copied on an assignment to a string variable, except the 
>> reference to the memory object.
>>
> Sorry,  I erroneously thought about the variable itself being ref 
> counted, while in fact the variable is a pointer to the (hidden) String 
> management record,

Fine that you finally start familiarizing with reference counted objects 
reality :-)

> which is the ref counted entity and holds the content 
> pointer to the String array.

Now you also should understand that a string variable points directly to 
the string content, it's usable as PChar(str) without any conversion. 
The other information about the string resides *before* that address.

DoDi