To: J3                                                     J3/18-259r2
From: Dan Nagle
Subject: part 2 functions
Date: 2018-October-17



I Introduction

ISO Varying Strings (1539-2) is also N1375, on the WG5 site.
Varying Strings is not being maintained by WG5 now.
There is some probability that it will be withdrawn at the next
opportunity to do so.

However, there were several procedures of varying strings
that have not been incorporated into the standard.

This paper urges that they be included.



II Use-cases

The procedures are (see 1539-2 (2000) for complete descriptions)

EXTRACT() copies a substring from a string

INSERT() inserts a substring into a string at a location

REMOVE() removes a substring from a string

REPLACE() replace characters by a substring (which is specified variously)

SPLIT() split a string into two where a character from a set is found



III What I have in mind

I propose that these procedures be incorporated into the standard.
They may be either plain intrinsics or module intrinsics
in a standard module.  So that's the straw vote:

Straw Vote:
Should the procedures in part 2 be incorporated into the standard as
1. plain intrinsics
2. module procedures in an intrinsic module
3. do not move these to Part 1.
4. Undecided

The results of the straw vote are 1-11-1-2.

The module won the straw vote, perhaps the module
could be named "ISO_FORTRAN_STRING".  However, this is TBD.



IV (Rough) Requirements

Incorporate the procedures from Part 2 as module procedures
in an intrinsic module.

These procedures should be generic for any character kind.