Strings

Immutable, length-aware string views that prevent buffer overflows.

Concept & Motivation

The Problem: Standard C strings (char*) are null-terminated. Calculating their length is $O(N)$, and missing a null terminator causes buffer overflows (e.g., Heartbleed).

The Solution: Camelot Strings are Fat Pointers. They store the pointer and the length together.

Buffer Safety

Because the length is explicit, Camelot functions never read past the end of the buffer, making buffer overflows mathematically impossible.

Architecture

Defined in include/types/string.h.

typedef struct {
    u8 *ptr;   // Pointer to data (NOT owned)
    u64 len;   // Exact length
} String;

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API Reference

string.from

Wraps a C-literal into a String view. Calculates length once at creation.

String s = string.from("Hello");

string.join

Concatenates two strings into a new string allocated on an Arena.

// Allocates "Hello World" on the workspace
String full = string.join(&workspace, s1, s2);

Ownership

Unlike C++ std::string, Camelot strings do not own their memory. You do not "free" a string; you release the Arena it lives on.