Use binaries for strings

[yakaz]

Use binaries for strings

[dumbbell]

Hi!

This is already supported through the str_node_as_binary option. Here's an example:

yamerl_constr:string("Happy New Year!", [str_node_as_binary]).

% Returns:
[<<"Happy New Year!">>].

Behind the scene, unicode:characters_to_binary/1 is used to convert the string to binary. Therefore, the binary uses UTF-8. If you prefer another encoding, you can specify it with the option:

% Ask for UTF-16LE encoded binaries.
yamerl_constr:string("Happy New Year!", [{str_node_as_binary, {utf16, little}}]).

% Returns:
[<<72,0,97,0,112,0,112,0,121,0,32,0,78,0,101,0,119,0,32,
   0,89,0,101,0,97,0,114,0,33,0>>].

Here, unicode:characters_to_binary/3 is used with unicode as the InEncoding argument (2nd argument).

Does this correspond to your usecase?

And best wishes for 2013! :)

[gleber]

Sounds good and solves my use case. Although IMO if binaries were the default it would be much better :)