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add info about equality, hashes, and help text #69

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75 changes: 75 additions & 0 deletions README.md
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -51,3 +51,78 @@ and length. See the docstring for any individual InlineString type for more deta
To generically turn any string into the smallest possible InlineString type,
call `InlineString(x)`. To convert any iterator/array of strings to a single,
promoted `InlineString` type, the `inlinestrings(A)` utility function is exported.

#### Equality

An inline string is value equal (`==`), but not identical equal (`===`) to the corresponding `String`:

```julia-repl
julia> String15("abc")
"abc"

julia> i = String15("abc")
"abc"

julia> s = "abc"
"abc"

julia> i == s
true

julia> i === s
false
```

#### Dictionaries & Hashes

The hash value of an inline string is the same as it's `String` counterpart. Continuing the above example:

```julia-repl
julia> Dict(s => 1, i => 2)
Dict{AbstractString, Int64} with 1 entry:
String15("abc") => 2

julia> y[i], y[s]
(2, 2)

julia> Dict(i => 1, i => 2)
Dict{String15, Int64} with 1 entry:
"abc" => 2

```

Note how the `Dict` is constructed with only one key-value pair. This is because we've only given the dictionary a single key (`Dict`s use the object's hash as it's underlying key), since `i` and `s` implement the same hash:
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```julia-repl
julia> hash(i)
0x7690a66f302b3f70

julia> hash(s)
0x7690a66f302b3f70
```

#### Additional details

Use the REPL's help mode to see more details, such as those desribed here for `String15`:

```julia-repl
help?> String15

String15(str::AbstractString)
String15(bytes::AbstractVector{UInt8}, pos, len)
String15(ptr::Ptr{UInt8}, [len])


Custom fixed-size string with a fixed size of 16 bytes. 1 byte is used to store the length of the string. If an inline
string is shorter than 15 bytes, the entire string still occupies the full 16 bytes since they are, by definition,
fixed size. Otherwise, they can be treated just like normal String values. Note that sizeof(x) will return the # of
codeunits in an String15 like String, not the total fixed size. For the fixed size, call sizeof(String15). String15 can
be constructed from an existing String (String15(x::AbstractString)), from a byte buffer with position and length
(String15(buf, pos, len)), from a pointer with optional length (String15(ptr, len)) or built iteratively by starting
with x = String15() and calling x, overflowed = InlineStrings.addcodeunit(x, b::UInt8) which returns a new String15
with the new codeunit b appended and an overflowed Bool value indicating whether too many codeunits have been appended
for the fixed size. When constructed from a pointer, note that the ptr must point to valid memory or program data may
become corrupt. If the len argument is specified with the pointer, it must fit within the fixed size of String15; if no
length is provided, the C-string is assumed to be NUL-terminated. If the NUL-terminated string ends up longer than can
fit in String15, an ArgumentError will be thrown.
```