Add specific character strings variables

[kilianmh]

Since some functions (such as concat) only accept strings.
Therefore sometimes it is convenient to have characters as strings.
E.g.

(defvar new-line (string #\Newline))

The we could use it in concat like this:

(str:concat "Hello" new-line "world") 

It could be useful, especially for the whitespace characters (e.g. for space) but maybe also others.
What do you think?

[vindarel]

Some functions have been worked out to also accept characters:

(str:join #\Newline '( "hello" "test"))

so I think we should allow characters for all, including concat.

[kilianmh]

we should allow characters for all, including concat

good idea. Could concat also accept numbers?

The only annoying thing with characters is the special syntax #\. So what you think if we define e.g. whitespace-characters as variable / constant to make it more "lispy" working with characters. For example:

(defvar new-line #\Newline)
(defconstant tab #\Tab)

Also one idea was introducing functions such as new-lines (or new-line?), that contain multiple times the same characters:

(defun new-lines (lines)
  (let ((result ""))
    (dotimes (var lines)
    (setf result (str:concat result "
")))
    result))

CL-USER> (new-lines 2)
"

"