X-Git-Url: https://git.saurik.com/wxWidgets.git/blobdiff_plain/a660d684eda27638bca0384b2058911a31c8e845..88594d02eb59a55ac85d3210a49d02918124617b:/docs/latex/wx/tstring.tex

diff --git a/docs/latex/wx/tstring.tex b/docs/latex/wx/tstring.tex
index b9afab0b9f..b40d241257 100644
--- a/docs/latex/wx/tstring.tex
+++ b/docs/latex/wx/tstring.tex
@@ -1,1079 +1,269 @@
 \section{wxString overview}\label{wxstringoverview}
 
-Class: \helpref{wxString}{wxstring}
-
-Strings are used very frequently in most programs. There is no direct support in
-the C++ language for strings. A string class can be useful in many
-situations: it not only makes the code shorter and easier to read, it also
-provides more security, because we don't have to deal with pointer acrobatics.
-
-wxString is available in two versions: a cut-down wxWindows,
-copyright-free version, and a much more powerful GNU-derived version. The default is the
-GNU-derived, fully-featured version, ported and revised by Stefan Hammes.
-
-For backward compatibility most of the member functions of the original
-wxWindows wxString class have been included, except some `dangerous'
-functions.
-
-wxString can be compiled under MSW, UNIX and VMS (see below). The
-function names have been capitalized to be consistent with the wxWindows
-naming scheme.
-
-The reasons for not using the GNU string class directly are:
-
-\begin{itemize}\itemsep=0pt
-\item It is not available on all systems (generally speaking, it is available only on some 
-UNIX systems).
-\item We can make changes and extensions to the string class as needed and are not
-forced to use `only' the functionality of the GNU string class.
-\end{itemize}
-
-The GNU code comes with certain copyright restrictions. If you can't
-live with these, you will need to use the cut-down wxString class
-instead, by editing wx\_setup.h and appropriate wxWindows makefiles.
-
-\subsection{Copyright of the original GNU code portion}
-
-Copyright (C) 1988, 1991, 1992 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
-written by Doug Lea (dl@rocky.oswego.edu)
-
-This file is part of the GNU C++ Library. This library is free
-software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of
-the GNU Library General Public License as published by the Free
-Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your
-option) any later version. This library is distributed in the hope
-that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the
-implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR
-PURPOSE. See the GNU Library General Public License for more details.
-You should have received a copy of the GNU Library General Public
-License along with this library; if not, write to the Free Software
-Foundation, 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
-
-\subsection{Features/Additions/Modifications}
-
-The wxString class offers many string handling functions and a support for
-regular expressions. This gives powerful, easy-to-use pattern-matching functionality.
-See below for a discussion of the GNU features of wxString. See also 
-the header file `wxstrgnu.h' which shows all member functions.
-
-As stated above, there are extensions to the wxString class.
-This includes the including of the `old' wxString class member functions.
-Below is a list of the additional member functions:
-
-\begin{itemize}\itemsep=0pt
-\item Access to the internal representation. Should be used with care:
-\begin{verbatim}
-  char* GetData() const;
-\end{verbatim}
-\item To make a copy of 'this' (only for compatibility):
-\begin{verbatim}
-  wxString Copy() const;
-\end{verbatim}
-\item For case sensitive and case insensitive comparisons:
-\begin{verbatim}
-  enum caseCompare {exact, ignoreCase};
-  int CompareTo(const char* cs,     caseCompare cmp = exact) const;
-  int CompareTo(const wxString& st, caseCompare cmp = exact) const;
-\end{verbatim}
-
-\item For case sensitive and case insensitive containment check:
-\begin{verbatim}
-  Bool Contains(const char* pat,     caseCompare cmp = exact) const;
-  Bool Contains(const wxString& pat, caseCompare cmp = exact) const;
-\end{verbatim}
-
-\item For case sensitive and case insensitive index calculation:
-\begin{verbatim}
-  int Index(const char* pat, int i=0,   caseCompare cmp = exact) const;
-  int Index(const wxString& s, int i=0, caseCompare cmp = exact) const;
-\end{verbatim}
-  
-\item For element access in addition to the [] operator:
-\begin{verbatim}
-  char& operator()(int);     // Indexing with  bounds checking
-\end{verbatim}
-
-\item To put something in front of a string:
-\begin{verbatim}
-  wxString& Prepend(const char*);           // Prepend a character string
-  wxString& Prepend(const wxString& s);
-  wxString& Prepend(char c, int rep=1);  // Prepend c rep times
-\end{verbatim}
-
-\item For concatenation:
-\begin{verbatim}
-  wxString& Append(const char* cs);
-  wxString& Append(const wxString& s);
-  wxString& Append(char c, int rep=1);   // Append c rep times
-\end{verbatim}
-
-\item To get the first and last occurrence of a char or string:
-\begin{verbatim}
-  int First(char c) const;
-  int First(const char* cs) const;
-  int First(const wxString& cs) const;
-  int Last(char c) const;
-  int Last(const char* cs) const;
-  int Last(const wxString& cs) const;
-\end{verbatim}
-  
-\item To insert something into a string              
-\begin{verbatim}
-  wxString& Insert(int pos, const char*);
-  wxString& Insert(int pos, const wxString&);
-\end{verbatim}
-
-\item To remove data (in addition to the 'Del' functions):
-\begin{verbatim}
-  wxString& Remove(int pos);        // Remove pos to end of string
-  wxString& Remove(int pos, int n); // Remove n chars starting at pos
-  wxString& RemoveLast(void);       // It removes the last char of a string
-\end{verbatim}
-
-\item To replace data:
-\begin{verbatim}
-  wxString& Replace(int pos, int n, const char*);
-  wxString& Replace(int pos, int n, const wxString&);
-\end{verbatim}
-
-\item Alternative names for compatibility:
-\begin{verbatim}
-  void LowerCase();              // Change self to lower-case
-  void UpperCase();              // Change self to upper-case
-\end{verbatim}
-
-\item Edward Zimmermann's additions:
-\begin{verbatim}
-  wxString SubString(int from, int to);
-\end{verbatim}
-
-\item Formatted assignment:
-\begin{verbatim}
-  void sprintf(const char *fmt, ...);
-\end{verbatim}
-
-We do not use the 'sprintf' constructor of the old wxString class anymore, 
-because with that constructor, every initialisation with a string would 
-go through sprintf and this is not desirable, because sprintf interprets
-some characters. With the above function we can write:
-
-\begin{verbatim}
-  wxString msg; msg.sprintf("Processing item %d\n",count);
-\end{verbatim}
-  
-\item Strip chars at the front and/or end.
-This can be useful for trimming strings:
-\begin{verbatim}
-  enum        StripType {leading = 0x1, trailing = 0x2, both = 0x3};
-  wxSubString Strip(StripType s=trailing, char c=' ');
-\end{verbatim}
-  
-\item Line input:  
-Besides the stream I/O functions this function can be used for non-standard
-formatted I/O with arbitrary line terminators.                            
-\begin{verbatim}
-  friend int  Readline(FILE *f, wxString& x, 
-                       char terminator = '\\n',
-                       int discard_terminator = 1);
-\end{verbatim}
-
-\item The GNU wxString class lacks some classification functions:
-\begin{verbatim}
-  int IsAscii() const;
-  int IsWord() const;
-  int IsNumber() const;
-  int IsNull() const;
-  int IsDefined() const;
-\end{verbatim}
-
-\item The meaning of nil has been changed. A wxString x is only nil, if it
-has been declared `wxString x'. In all other cases it is NOT nil. This
-seems to me more logical than to let a `wxString x=""' be nil as it
-was in the original GNU code.
+Classes: \helpref{wxString}{wxstring}, \helpref{wxArrayString}{wxarraystring}, \helpref{wxStringTokenizer}{wxstringtokenizer}
+
+\subsection{Introduction}
+
+wxString is a class which represents a character string of arbitrary length (limited by 
+{\it MAX\_INT} which is usually 2147483647 on 32 bit machines) and containing
+arbitrary characters. The ASCII NUL character is allowed, although care should be
+taken when passing strings containing it to other functions.
+
+wxString works with both ASCII (8 bit characters) as well as UNICODE (16 but
+characters) strings.
+
+This class has all the standard operations you can expect to find in a string class:
+dynamic memory management (string extends to accommodate new characters),
+construction from other strings, C strings and characters, assignment operators,
+access to individual characters, string concatenation and comparison, substring
+extraction, case conversion, trimming and padding (with spaces), searching and
+replacing and both C-like \helpref{Printf()}{wxstringprintf} and stream-like
+insertion functions as well as much more - see \helpref{wxString}{wxstring} 
+for a list of all functions.
+
+\subsection{Comparison of wxString to other string classes}
+
+The advantages of using a special string class instead of working directly with
+C strings are so obvious that there is a huge number of such classes available.
+The most important advantage is the need to always
+remember to allocate/free memory for C strings; working with fixed size buffers almost
+inevitably leads to buffer overflows. At last, C++ has a standard string class
+(std::string). So why the need for wxString?
+
+There are several advantages:
+
+\begin{enumerate}\itemsep=0pt
+\item {\bf Efficiency} This class was made to be as efficient as possible: both
+in terms of size (each wxString objects takes exactly the same space as a {\it
+char *} pointer, sing \helpref{reference counting}{wxstringrefcount}) and speed.
+It also provides performance \helpref{statistics gathering code}{wxstringtuning} 
+which may be enabled to fine tune the memory allocation strategy for your
+particular application - and the gain might be quite big.
+\item {\bf Compatibility} This class tries to combine almost full compatibility
+with the old wxWindows 1.xx wxString class, some reminiscence to MFC CString
+class and 90\% of the functionality of std::string class.
+\item {\bf Rich set of functions} Some of the functions present in wxString are
+very useful but don't exist in most of other string classes: for example, 
+\helpref{AfterFirst}{wxstringafterfirst}, 
+\helpref{BeforeLast}{wxstringbeforelast}, \helpref{operator<<}{wxstringoperatorout} 
+or \helpref{Printf}{wxstringprintf}. Of course, all the standard string
+operations are supported as well.
+\item {\bf UNICODE} In this release, wxString only supports {\it construction} from
+a UNICODE string, but in the next one it will be capable of also storing its
+internal data in either ASCII or UNICODE format.
+\item {\bf Used by wxWindows} And, of course, this class is used everywhere
+inside wxWindows so there is no performance loss which would result from
+conversions of objects of any other string class (including std::string) to
+wxString internally by wxWindows.
+\end{enumerate}
 
-\item {\bf IMPORTANT:}
-the following is a very, very, very ugly macro, but it makes things more
-transparent in cases, where a library function requires a 
-(char*) argument. This is especially the case in wxWindows,
-where most char-arguments are (char*) and not (const char*).
-this macro should only be used in such cases and NOT to
-modify the internal data. The standard type conversion function
-of wxString returns a '(const char*)'.
-The conventional way would be 'function((char*)string.Chars())'.
-With the macro this can be achieved by 'function(wxCHARARG(string))'.
-Whis makes it clearer that the usage should be confined
-to arguments. See below for examples.
+However, there are several problems as well. The most important one is probably
+that there are often several functions to do exactly the same thing: for
+example, to get the length of the string either one of 
+length(), \helpref{Len()}{wxstringlen} or 
+\helpref{Length()}{wxstringlength} may be used. The first function, as almost
+all the other functions in lowercase, is std::string compatible. The second one
+is "native" wxString version and the last one is wxWindows 1.xx way. So the
+question is: which one is better to use? And the answer is that:
+
+{\bf The usage of std::string compatible functions is strongly advised!} It will
+both make your code more familiar to other C++ programmers (who are supposed to
+have knowledge of std::string but not of wxString), let you reuse the same code
+in both wxWindows and other programs (by just typedefing wxString as std::string
+when used outside wxWindows) and by staying compatible with future versions of
+wxWindows which will probably start using std::string sooner or later too.
+
+In the situations where there is no corresponding std::string function, please
+try to use the new wxString methods and not the old wxWindows 1.xx variants
+which are deprecated and may disappear in future versions.
+
+\subsection{Some advice about using wxString}\label{wxstringadvices}
+
+Probably the main trap with using this class is the implicit conversion operator to 
+{\it const char *}. It is advised that you use \helpref{c\_str()}{wxstringcstr}
+instead to clearly indicate when the conversion is done. Specifically, the
+danger of this implicit conversion may be seen in the following code fragment:
 
 \begin{verbatim}
-#define wxCHARARG(s) ((char*)(s).Chars())  
-\end{verbatim}
-
-\end{itemize}
+// this function converts the input string to uppercase, output it to the screen
+// and returns the result
+const char *SayHELLO(const wxString& input)
+{
+    wxString output = input.Upper();
 
-\subsection{Function calls}
+    printf("Hello, %s!\n", output);
 
-When using wxString objects as parameters to other functions you should
-note the following:
-
-\begin{verbatim}
-void f1(const char *s){}
-void f2(char *s){}
-
-main(){
-  wxString aString;
-  f1(aString); // ok
-  f2(aString); // error
-  f2(wxCHARARG(aString)); // ok
-  printf("%s",aString); // NO compilation error, but a runtime error.
-  printf("%s",aString.Chars()); // ok
-  printf("%s",wxCHARARG(aString)); // ok
+    return output;
 }
 \end{verbatim}
 
-\subsection{Header files}
-
-For DOS and UNIX we use a stub-headerfile {\tt include/base/wxstring.h}\rtfsp
-which includes the two headerfiles in the {\tt contrib/wxstring} directory,
-namely {\tt contrib/wxstring/wxstrgnu.h} and {\tt contrib/wxstring/wxregex.h}.
-If there is a headerfile {\tt contrib/wxstring/wxstring.h}, please
-delete it. It will cause problems in the VMS compilation.
-
-For VMS we have to do an addition due to the not very intelligent inclusion mechanism
-of the VMS C++ compiler:
-In the VMS-Makefile, the include-file search path is augmented with the 
-{\tt contrib/wxstring} directory, so that the correct headerfiles 
-can be included.
-
-So you have only to specify
+There are two nasty bugs in these three lines. First of them is in the call to the 
+{\it printf()} function. Although the implicit conversion to C strings is applied
+automatically by the compiler in the case of
 
 \begin{verbatim}
-#define USE_GNU_WXSTRING 1
-\end{verbatim}
-
-in {\tt include/base/wx\_setup.h} to use the wxString class.
-
-\subsection{Test program}
-
-Stefan Hammes has included a test program {\tt test.cc} in the contrib/wxstring directory for many features
-of wxString and wxRegex. It also tests Stefan's extensions.
-When running the compiled program, there should
-be NO assert-errors if everything is OK. When compiling the test
-program, you can ignore warnings about unused variables. They
-occur because Stefan has used a special method of initializing all
-variables to the same start values before each test.
-
-\subsection{Compilers}
-
-wxString and wxRegex have been compiled successfully with the following
-compilers (it should work on nearly every C++ compiler):
-
-\begin{itemize}\itemsep=0pt
-\item PC    MS-Visual C++ 1.0, 1.5
-\item UNIX  gcc v2.6.3
-\item UNIX  Sun SunPro compiler under Solaris 2.x
-\item VMS   DEC C++ compiler (on VAX and AXP)
-\end{itemize}
-
-Warnings about type conversion or assignments can be ignored.
-
-\subsection{GNU Documentation}
-
-Below is the original GNU wxString and wxRegex
-documentation. It describes most functions of the classes.
-The function names have been capitalized to be consistent with
-the wxWindows naming scheme. The examples are integrated into the test program.
-
-Copyright (C) 1988, 1991, 1992 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
-
-Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this
-manual provided the copyright notice and this permission notice are
-preserved on all copies.
-
-Permission is granted to copy and distribute modified versions of
-this manual under the conditions for verbatim copying, provided also
-that the section entitled "GNU Library General Public License" is
-included exactly as in the original, and provided that the entire
-resulting derived work is distributed under the terms of a permission
-notice identical to this one.
-
-Permission is granted to copy and distribute translations of this
-manual into another language, under the above conditions for modified
-versions, except that the section entitled "GNU Library General Public
-License" and this permission notice may be included in translations
-approved by the Free Software Foundation instead of in the original
-English.
-
-\subsubsection{The wxString class}
-
-The `wxString' class is designed to extend GNU C++ to support string
-processing capabilities similar to those in languages like Awk. The
-class provides facilities that ought to be convenient and efficient
-enough to be useful replacements for `char*' based processing via the C
-string library (i.e., `strcpy, strcmp,' etc.) in many applications.
-Many details about wxString representations are described in the
-Representation section.
-
-A separate `wxSubString' class supports substring extraction and
-modification operations. This is implemented in a way that user
-programs never directly construct or represent substrings, which are
-only used indirectly via wxString operations.
-
-Another separate class, `wxRegex' is also used indirectly via wxString
-operations in support of regular expression searching, matching, and the
-like.  The wxRegex class is based entirely on the GNU Emacs regex
-functions. See \helpref{Regular Expressions}{regularexpressions} 
-for a full explanation of regular expression syntax. (For
-implementation details, see the internal documentation in files 
-{\tt wxregex.h} and {\tt wxregex.cc}).
-
-\subsubsection{Constructor examples}
-
-Strings are initialized and assigned as in the following examples:
-
-{\tt wxString x;} 
-Set x to the nil string. This is different from the original GNU code
-which sets a strings also to nil when it is assign 0 or "".
-
-{\tt wxString x = "Hello"; wxString y("Hello");} 
-Set x and y to a copy of the string "Hello".
-
-{\tt wxString x = 'A'; wxString y('A');} 
-Set x and y to the string value "A".
-
-{\tt wxString u = x; wxString v(x);} 
-Set u and v to the same string as wxString x
-
-{\tt wxString u = x.At(1,4); wxString v(x.At(1,4));} 
-Set u and v to the length 4 substring of x starting at position 1
-(counting indexes from 0).
-
-{\tt wxString x("abc", 2);} 
-Sets x to "ab", i.e., the first 2 characters of "abc".
-
-There are no directly accessible forms for declaring wxSubString
-variables.
-
-The declaration \verb$wxRegex r("[a-zA-Z_][a-zA-Z0-9_]*");$ creates
-compiled regular expression suitable for use in wxString operations
-described below. (In this case, one that matches any C++ identifier).
-The first argument may also be a wxString.  Be careful in distinguishing
-the role of backslashes in quoted GNU C++ `char*' constants versus those
-in Regexes. For example, a wxRegex that matches either one or more tabs
-or all strings beginning with "ba" and ending with any number of
-occurrences of "na" could be declared as 
-
-\begin{verbatim} 
-   wxRegex r = "\\(\t+\\)\\|\\(ba\\(na\\)*\\)"
+    puts(output);
 \end{verbatim}
 
-Note that only one backslash is needed
-to signify the tab, but two are needed for the parenthesization and
-virgule, since the GNU C++ lexical analyzer decodes and strips
-backslashes before they are seen by wxRegex.
+because the argument of {\it puts()} is known to be of the type {\it const char *},
+this is {\bf not} done for {\it printf()} which is a function with variable
+number of arguments (and whose arguments are of unknown types). So this call may
+do anything at all (including displaying the correct string on screen), although
+the most likely result is a program crash. The solution is to use 
+\helpref{c\_str()}{wxstringcstr}: just replace this line with
 
-There are three additional optional arguments to the wxRegex
-constructor that are less commonly useful:
-
-{\tt fast (default 0)} 
-`fast' may be set to true (1) if the wxRegex should be
-"fast-compiled". This causes an additional compilation step that
-is generally worthwhile if the wxRegex will be used many times.
-
-{\tt bufsize (default max(40, length of the string))} 
-This is an estimate of the size of the internal compiled
-expression. Set it to a larger value if you know that the
-expression will require a lot of space. If you do not know, do not
-worry: realloc is used if necessary.
-
-{\tt transtable (default none == 0)} 
-The address of a byte translation table (a char[256]) that
-translates each character before matching.
-
-As a convenience, several Regexes are predefined and usable in any
-program. Here are their declarations from {\tt wxString.h}.
 \begin{verbatim}
-     extern wxRegex RXwhite;      // = "[ \n\t]+"
-     extern wxRegex RXint;        // = "-?[0-9]+"
-     extern wxRegex RXdouble;     // = "-?\\(\\([0-9]+\\.[0-9]*\\)\\|
-                                  //    \\([0-9]+\\)\\|
-                                  //    \\(\\.[0-9]+\\)\\)
-                                  //    \\([eE][---+]?[0-9]+\\)?"
-     extern wxRegex RXalpha;      // = "[A-Za-z]+"
-     extern wxRegex RXlowercase;  // = "[a-z]+"
-     extern wxRegex RXuppercase;  // = "[A-Z]+"
-     extern wxRegex RXalphanum;   // = "[0-9A-Za-z]+"
-     extern wxRegex RXidentifier; // = "[A-Za-z_][A-Za-z0-9_]*"
+    printf("Hello, %s!\n", output.c_str());
 \end{verbatim}
 
-\subsubsection{Examples}
+The second bug is that returning {\it output} doesn't work. The implicit cast is
+used again, so the code compiles, but as it returns a pointer to a buffer
+belonging to a local variable which is deleted as soon as the function exits,
+its contents is totally arbitrary. The solution to this problem is also easy:
+just make the function return wxString instead of a C string.
+
+This leads us to the following general advice: all functions taking string
+arguments should take {\it const wxString\&} (this makes assignment to the
+strings inside the function faster because of 
+\helpref{reference counting}{wxstringrefcount}) and all functions returning
+strings should return {\it wxString} - this makes it safe to return local
+variables.
 
-Most {\tt wxString} class capabilities are best shown via example.  The
-examples below use the following declarations.
+\subsection{Other string related functions and classes}
+
+As most programs use character strings, the standard C library provides quite
+a few functions to work with them. Unfortunately, some of them have rather
+counter-intuitive behaviour (like strncpy() which doesn't always terminate the
+resulting string with a NULL) and are in general not very safe (passing NULL
+to them will probably lead to program crash). Moreover, some very useful
+functions are not standard at all. This is why in addition to all wxString
+functions, there are also a few global string functions which try to correct
+these problems: \helpref{wxIsEmpty()}{wxisempty} verifies whether the string
+is empty (returning {\tt TRUE} for {\tt NULL} pointers), 
+\helpref{wxStrlen()}{wxstrlen} also handles NULLs correctly and returns 0 for
+them and \helpref{wxStricmp()}{wxstricmp} is just a platform-independent
+version of case-insensitive string comparison function known either as
+stricmp() or strcasecmp() on different platforms.
+
+The {\tt <wx/string.h>} header also defines \helpref{wxSnprintf}{wxsnprintf} 
+and \helpref{wxVsnprintf}{wxvsnprintf} functions which should be used instead
+of the inherently dangerous standard {\tt sprintf()} and which use {\tt
+snprintf()} instead which does buffer size checks whenever possible. Of
+course, you may also use \helpref{wxString::Printf}{wxstringprintf} which is
+also safe.
+
+There is another class which might be useful when working with wxString: 
+\helpref{wxStringTokenizer}{wxstringtokenizer}. It is helpful when a string must
+be broken into tokens and replaces the standard C library {\it
+strtok()} function.
+
+And the very last string-related class is \helpref{wxArrayString}{wxarraystring}: it
+is just a version of the "template" dynamic array class which is specialized to work
+with strings. Please note that this class is specially optimized (using its
+knowledge of the internal structure of wxString) for storing strings and so it is
+vastly better from a performance point of view than a wxObjectArray of wxStrings.
+
+\subsection{Reference counting and why you shouldn't care about it}\label{wxstringrefcount}
+
+wxString objects use a technique known as {\it copy on write} (COW). This means
+that when a string is assigned to another, no copying really takes place: only
+the reference count on the shared string data is incremented and both strings
+share the same data.
+
+But as soon as one of the two (or more) strings is modified, the data has to be
+copied because the changes to one of the strings shouldn't be seen in the
+others. As data copying only happens when the string is written to, this is
+known as COW.
+
+What is important to understand is that all this happens absolutely
+transparently to the class users and that whether a string is shared or not is
+not seen from the outside of the class - in any case, the result of any
+operation on it is the same.
+
+Probably the unique case when you might want to think about reference
+counting is when a string character is taken from a string which is not a
+constant (or a constant reference). In this case, due to C++ rules, the
+"read-only" {\it operator[]} (which is the same as 
+\helpref{GetChar()}{wxstringgetchar}) cannot be chosen and the "read/write" 
+{\it operator[]} (the same as 
+\helpref{GetWritableChar()}{wxstringgetwritablechar}) is used instead. As the
+call to this operator may modify the string, its data is unshared (COW is done)
+and so if the string was really shared there is some performance loss (both in
+terms of speed and memory consumption). In the rare cases when this may be
+important, you might prefer using \helpref{GetChar()}{wxstringgetchar} instead
+of the array subscript operator for this reasons. Please note that 
+\helpref{at()}{wxstringat} method has the same problem as the subscript operator in
+this situation and so using it is not really better. Also note that if all
+string arguments to your functions are passed as {\it const wxString\&} (see the
+section \helpref{Some advice}{wxstringadvices}) this situation will almost
+never arise because for constant references the correct operator is called automatically.
+
+\subsection{Tuning wxString for your application}\label{wxstringtuning}
+
+\normalbox{{\bf Note:} this section is strictly about performance issues and is
+absolutely not necessary to read for using wxString class. Please skip it unless
+you feel familiar with profilers and relative tools. If you do read it, please
+also read the preceding section about 
+\helpref{reference counting}{wxstringrefcount}.}
+
+For the performance reasons wxString doesn't allocate exactly the amount of
+memory needed for each string. Instead, it adds a small amount of space to each
+allocated block which allows it to not reallocate memory (a relatively
+expensive operation) too often as when, for example, a string is constructed by
+subsequently adding one character at a time to it, as for example in:
 
 \begin{verbatim}
-         wxString x = "Hello";
-         wxString y = "world";
-         wxString n = "123";
-         wxString z;
-         char *s = ",";
-         wxString lft, mid, rgt;
-         wxRegex  r = "e[a-z]*o";
-         wxRegex  r2("/[a-z]*/");
-         char   c;
-         int    i, pos, len;
-         double f;
-         wxString words[10];
-         words[0] = "a";
-         words[1] = "b";
-         words[2] = "c";
+// delete all vowels from the string
+wxString DeleteAllVowels(const wxString& original)
+{
+    wxString result;
+
+    size_t len = original.length();
+    for ( size_t n = 0; n < len; n++ )
+    {
+        if ( strchr("aeuio", tolower(original[n])) == NULL )
+            result += original[n];
+    }
+
+    return result;
+}
 \end{verbatim}
 
-\subsubsection{Comparing, Searching and Matching examples}
-
-The usual lexicographic relational operators (`==, !=, <, <=, >, >=')
-are defined. A functional form `compare(wxString, wxString)' is also
-provided, as is `fcompare(wxString, wxString)', which compares Strings
-without regard for upper vs. lower case.
-
-All other matching and searching operations are based on some form
-of the (non-public) `match' and `search' functions.  `match' and
-`search' differ in that `match' attempts to match only at the given
-starting position, while `search' starts at the position, and then
-proceeds left or right looking for a match.  As seen in the following
-examples, the second optional `startpos' argument to functions using
-`match' and `search' specifies the starting position of the search: If
-non-negative, it results in a left-to-right search starting at position
-`startpos', and if negative, a right-to-left search starting at
-position `x.Length() + startpos'. In all cases, the index returned is
-that of the beginning of the match, or -1 if there is no match.
-
-Three wxString functions serve as front ends to `search' and `match'.
-`index' performs a search, returning the index, `matches' performs a
-match, returning nonzero (actually, the length of the match) on success,
-and `contains' is a boolean function performing either a search or
-match, depending on whether an index argument is provided:
-
-{\tt x.Index("lo")} 
-Returns the zero-based index of the leftmost occurrence of
-substring "lo" (3, in this case).  The argument may be a wxString,
-wxSubString, char, char*, or wxRegex.
-
-{\tt x.Index("l", 2)} 
-Returns the index of the first of the leftmost occurrence of "l"
-found starting the search at position x[2], or 2 in this case.
-
-{\tt x.Index("l", -1)} 
-Returns the index of the rightmost occurrence of "l", or 3 here.
-
-{\tt x.Index("l", -3)} 
-Returns the index of the rightmost occurrence of "l" found by
-starting the search at the 3rd to the last position of x,
-returning 2 in this case.
-
-{\tt pos = r.Search("leo", 3, len, 0)} 
-Returns the index of r in the {\tt char*} string of length 3, starting
-at position 0, also placing the  length of the match in reference
-parameter len.
-
-{\tt x.Contains("He")} 
-Returns nonzero if the wxString x contains the substring "He". The
-argument may be a wxString, wxSubString, char, char*, or wxRegex.
-
-{\tt x.Contains("el", 1)} 
-Returns nonzero if x contains the substring "el" at position 1.
-As in this example, the second argument to `contains', if present,
-means to match the substring only at that position, and not to
-search elsewhere in the string.
-
-{\tt x.Contains(RXwhite);} 
-Returns nonzero if x contains any whitespace (space, tab, or
-newline). Recall that `RXwhite' is a global whitespace wxRegex.
-
-{\tt x.Matches("lo", 3)} 
-Returns nonzero if x starting at position 3 exactly matches "lo",
-with no trailing characters (as it does in this example).
-
-{\tt x.Matches(r)} 
-Returns nonzero if wxString x as a whole matches wxRegex r.
-
-{\tt int f = x.Freq("l")} 
-Returns the number of distinct, nonoverlapping matches to the
-argument (2 in this case).
-
-\subsubsection{Substring extraction examples}
-
-Substrings may be extracted via the `at', `before', `through',
-`from', and `after' functions.  These behave as either lvalues or
-rvalues.
-
-{\tt z = x.At(2, 3)} 
-Sets wxString z to be equal to the length 3 substring of wxString x
-starting at zero-based position 2, setting z to "llo" in this
-case. A nil wxString is returned if the arguments don't make sense.
-
-{\tt x.At(2, 2) = "r"} 
-Sets what was in positions 2 to 3 of x to "r", setting x to "Hero"
-in this case. As indicated here, wxSubString assignments may be of
-different lengths.
-
-{\tt x.At("He") = "je";} 
-x("He") is the substring of x that matches the first occurrence of
-it's argument. The substitution sets x to "jello". If "He" did not
-occur, the substring would be nil, and the assignment would have
-no effect.
-
-{\tt x.At("l", -1) = "i";} 
-Replaces the rightmost occurrence of "l" with "i", setting x to
-"Helio".
-
-{\tt z = x.At(r)} 
-Sets wxString z to the first match in x of wxRegex r, or "ello" in this
-case. A nil wxString is returned if there is no match.
-
-{\tt z = x.Before("o")} 
-Sets z to the part of x to the left of the first occurrence of
-"o", or "Hell" in this case. The argument may also be a wxString,
-wxSubString, or wxRegex.  (If there is no match, z is set to "".)
-
-{\tt x.Before("ll") = "Bri";} 
-Sets the part of x to the left of "ll" to "Bri", setting x to
-"Brillo".
-
-{\tt z = x.Before(2)} 
-Sets z to the part of x to the left of x[2], or "He" in this case.
-
-{\tt z = x.After("Hel")} 
-Sets z to the part of x to the right of "Hel", or "lo" in this
-case.
-
-{\tt z = x.Through("el")} 
-Sets z to the part of x up and including "el", or "Hel" in this
-case.
-
-{\tt z = x.From("el")} 
-Sets z to the part of x from "el" to the end, or "ello" in this
-case.
-
-{\tt x.After("Hel") = "p";} 
-Sets x to "Help";
-
-{\tt z = x.After(3)} 
-Sets z to the part of x to the right of x[3] or "o" in this case.
-
-{\tt z = "  ab c"; z = z.After(RXwhite)} 
-Sets z to the part of its old string to the right of the first
-group of whitespace, setting z to "ab c"; Use GSub(below) to strip
-out multiple occurrences of whitespace or any pattern.
-
-{\tt x[0] = 'J';} 
-Sets the first element of x to 'J'. x[i] returns a reference to
-the ith element of x, or triggers an error if i is out of range.
-
-{\tt CommonPrefix(x, "Help")} 
-Returns the wxString containing the common prefix of the two Strings
-or "Hel" in this case.
-
-{\tt CommonSuffix(x, "to")} 
-Returns the wxString containing the common suffix of the two Strings
-or "o" in this case.
-
-\subsubsection{Concatenation examples}
-
-{\tt z = x + s + ' ' + y.At("w") + y.After("w") + ".";} 
-Sets z to "Hello, world."
-
-{\tt x += y;} 
-Sets x to "Helloworld".
-
-{\tt Cat(x, y, z)} 
-A faster way to say z = x + y.
-
-{\tt Cat(z, y, x, x)} 
-Double concatenation; A faster way to say x = z + y + x.
-
-{\tt y.Prepend(x);} 
-A faster way to say y = x + y.
-
-{\tt z = Replicate(x, 3);} 
-Sets z to "HelloHelloHello".
-
-{\tt z = Join(words, 3, "/")} 
-Sets z to the concatenation of the first 3 Strings in wxString array
-words, each separated by "/", setting z to "a/b/c" in this case.
-The last argument may be "" or 0, indicating no separation.
-
-\subsubsection{Other manipulation examples}
-
-{\tt z = "this string has five words"; i = Split(z, words, 10, RXwhite);} 
-Sets up to 10 elements of wxString array words to the parts of z
-separated by whitespace, and returns the number of parts actually
-encountered (5 in this case). Here, words[0] = "this", words[1] =
-"string", etc.  The last argument may be any of the usual.  If
-there is no match, all of z ends up in words[0]. The words array
-is *not* dynamically created by split.
-
-{\tt int nmatches x.GSub("l","ll")} 
-Substitutes all original occurrences of "l" with "ll", setting x
-to "Hellllo". The first argument may be any of the usual,
-including wxRegex.  If the second argument is "" or 0, all
-occurrences are deleted. gsub returns the number of matches that
-were replaced.
-
-{\tt z = x + y;  z.Del("loworl");} 
-Deletes the leftmost occurrence of "loworl" in z, setting z to
-"Held".
-
-{\tt z = Reverse(x)} 
-Sets z to the reverse of x, or "olleH".
-
-{\tt z = Upcase(x)} 
-Sets z to x, with all letters set to uppercase, setting z to
-"HELLO".
-
-{\tt z = Downcase(x)} 
-Sets z to x, with all letters set to lowercase, setting z to
-"hello"
-
-{\tt z = Capitalize(x)} 
-Sets z to x, with the first letter of each word set to uppercase,
-and all others to lowercase, setting z to "Hello"
-
-{\tt x.Reverse(), x.Upcase(), x.Downcase(), x.Capitalize()} 
-in-place, self-modifying versions of the above.
-
-\subsubsection{Reading, Writing and Conversion examples}
-
-{\tt cout << x} 
-Writes out x.
-
-{\tt cout << x.At(2, 3)} 
-Writes out the substring "llo".
-
-{\tt cin >> x} 
-Reads a whitespace-bounded string into x.
-
-{\tt x.Length()} 
-Returns the length of wxString x (5, in this case).
-
-{\tt s = (const char*)x} 
-Can be used to extract the `char*' char array. This coercion is
-useful for sending a wxString as an argument to any function
-expecting a `const char*' argument (like `atoi', and
-`File::open'). This operator must be used with care, since the
-conversion returns a pointer to `wxString' internals without copying
-the characters: The resulting `(char*)' is only valid until the
-next wxString operation,  and you must not modify it.  (The
-conversion is defined to return a const value so that GNU C++ will
-produce warning and/or error messages if changes are attempted.)
-
-\subsection{Regular Expressions}\label{regularexpressions}
-
-The following are extracts from GNU documentation.
-
-\subsubsection{Regular Expression Overview}
-
-Regular expression matching allows you to test whether a string fits
-into a specific syntactic shape. You can also search a string for a
-substring that fits a pattern.
-
-A regular expression describes a set of strings. The simplest case
-is one that describes a particular string; for example, the string
-`foo' when regarded as a regular expression matches `foo' and nothing
-else. Nontrivial regular expressions use certain special constructs
-so that they can match more than one string. For example, the
-regular expression `foo$\backslash$|bar' matches either the string `foo' or the
-string `bar'; the regular expression `c[ad]*r' matches any of the
-strings `cr', `car', `cdr', `caar', `cadddar' and all other such
-strings with any number of `a''s and `d''s.
-
-The first step in matching a regular expression is to compile it. 
-You must supply the pattern string and also a pattern buffer to hold
-the compiled result. That result contains the pattern in an internal
-format that is easier to use in matching.
-
-Having compiled a pattern, you can match it against strings. You can
-match the compiled pattern any number of times against different
-strings.
-
-\subsubsection{Syntax of Regular Expressions}
-
-Regular expressions have a syntax in which a few characters are
-special constructs and the rest are "ordinary". An ordinary
-character is a simple regular expression which matches that character
-and nothing else. The special characters are `\verb+\$+', `\verb+^+', `.', `*',
-`+', `?', `[', `]' and `$\backslash$'. Any other character appearing in a
-regular expression is ordinary, unless a `$\backslash$' precedes it.
-
-For example, `f' is not a special character, so it is ordinary, and
-therefore `f' is a regular expression that matches the string `f' and
-no other string. (It does *not* match the string `ff'.) Likewise,
-`o' is a regular expression that matches only `o'.
-
-Any two regular expressions A and B can be concatenated. The result
-is a regular expression which matches a string if A matches some
-amount of the beginning of that string and B matches the rest of the
-string.
-
-As a simple example, we can concatenate the regular expressions `f'
-and `o' to get the regular expression `fo', which matches only the
-string `fo'. Still trivial.
-
-Note: for Unix compatibility, special characters are treated as
-ordinary ones if they are in contexts where their special meanings
-make no sense. For example, `*foo' treats `*' as ordinary since
-there is no preceding expression on which the `*' can act. It is
-poor practice to depend on this behavior; better to quote the special
-character anyway, regardless of where is appears.
-
-The following are the characters and character sequences which have
-special meaning within regular expressions. Any character not
-mentioned here is not special; it stands for exactly itself for the
-purposes of searching and matching.
-
-\begin{itemize}
-\itemsep=0pt
-
-\item \rtfsp
-{\tt .} is a special character that matches anything except a newline. 
-Using concatenation, we can make regular expressions like {\tt a.b}
-which matches any three-character string which begins with {\tt a}
-and ends with {\tt b}.
-
-\item \rtfsp
-{\tt *} is not a construct by itself; it is a suffix, which means the
-preceding regular expression is to be repeated as many times as
-possible. In {\tt fo*}, the {\tt *} applies to the {\tt o}, so {\tt fo*}
-matches {\tt f} followed by any number of {\tt o}'s.
-
-The case of zero {\tt o}'s is allowed: {\tt fo*} does match {\tt f}.
-
-{\tt *} always applies to the *smallest* possible preceding
-expression. Thus, {\tt fo*} has a repeating {\tt o}, not a repeating
-{\tt fo}.
-
-The matcher processes a {\tt *} construct by matching, immediately,
-as many repetitions as can be found. Then it continues with the
-rest of the pattern. If that fails, backtracking occurs,
-discarding some of the matches of the {\tt *}'d construct in case
-that makes it possible to match the rest of the pattern. For
-example, matching {\tt c$[$ad$]$*ar} against the string {\tt caddaar}, the
-{\tt $[$ad$]$*} first matches {\tt addaa}, but this does not allow the next
-{\tt a} in the pattern to match. So the last of the matches of
-{\tt $[$ad$]$} is undone and the following {\tt a} is tried again. Now it
-succeeds.
-
-\item \rtfsp
-{\tt +} is like {\tt *} except that at least one match for the preceding
-pattern is required for {\tt +}. Thus, {\tt c$[$ad$]$+r} does not match
-{\tt cr} but does match anything else that {\tt c$[$ad$]$*r} would match.
-
-\item \rtfsp
-{\tt ?} is like {\tt *} except that it allows either zero or one match
-for the preceding pattern. Thus, {\tt c$[$ad$]$?r} matches {\tt cr} or
-{\tt car} or {\tt cdr}, and nothing else.
-
-\item \rtfsp
-{\tt $[$} begins a "character set", which is terminated by a {\tt $]$}. In
-the simplest case, the characters between the two form the set. 
-Thus, {\tt $[$ad$]$} matches either {\tt a} or {\tt d}, and {\tt $[$ad$]$*} matches any
-string of {\tt a}'s and {\tt d}'s (including the empty string), from
-which it follows that {\tt c$[$ad$]$*r} matches {\tt car}, etc.
-
-Character ranges can also be included in a character set, by
-writing two characters with a {\tt -} between them. Thus, {\tt $[$a-z$]$}
-matches any lower-case letter. Ranges may be intermixed freely
-with individual characters, as in {\tt $[$a-z\$\%.$]$}, which matches any
-lower case letter or {\tt \$}, {\tt \%} or period.
-
-Note that the usual special characters are not special any more
-inside a character set. A completely different set of special
-characters exists inside character sets: {\tt $]$}, {\tt -} and \verb$^$.
-
-To include a {\tt $]$} in a character set, you must make it the first
-character. For example, {\tt $[$$]$a$]$} matches {\tt $]$} or {\tt a}. To include
-a {\tt -}, you must use it in a context where it cannot possibly
-indicate a range: that is, as the first character, or
-immediately after a range.
-
-\item \rtfsp
-\verb$[^$ begins a "complement character set", which matches any
-character except the ones specified. Thus, \verb$[^a-z0-9A-Z]$
-matches all characters {\it except} letters and digits.
-
-\item \rtfsp
-\verb$^$ is not special in a character set unless it is the first
-character. The character following the \verb$^$ is treated as if it
-were first (it may be a {\tt -} or a {\tt $]$}).
-
-\verb$^$ is a special character that matches the empty string -- but only
-if at the beginning of a line in the text being matched. 
-Otherwise it fails to match anything. Thus, \verb$^foo$ matches a
-{\tt foo} which occurs at the beginning of a line.
-
-\item \rtfsp
-{\tt \$} 
-is similar to \verb$^$ but matches only at the end of a line. Thus,
-{\tt xx*\$} matches a string of one or more {\tt x}'s at the end of a line.
-
-\item \rtfsp
-{\tt $\backslash$} 
-has two functions: it quotes the above special characters
-(including {\tt $\backslash$}), and it introduces additional special constructs.
-
-Because {\tt $\backslash$} quotes special characters, {\tt $\backslash$\$} is a regular
-expression which matches only {\tt \$}, and {\tt $\backslash$$[$} is a regular
-expression which matches only {\tt $[$}, and so on.
-
-For the most part, {\tt $\backslash$} followed by any character matches only
-that character. However, there are several exceptions:
-characters which, when preceded by {\tt $\backslash$}, are special constructs. 
-Such characters are always ordinary when encountered on their own.
-
-No new special characters will ever be defined. All extensions
-to the regular expression syntax are made by defining new
-two-character constructs that begin with {\tt $\backslash$}.
-
-\item \rtfsp
-{\tt $\backslash$|} 
-specifies an alternative. Two regular expressions A and B with
-{\tt $\backslash$|} in between form an expression that matches anything that
-either A or B will match.
-
-Thus, {\tt foo$\backslash$|bar} matches either {\tt foo} or {\tt bar} but no other
-string.
-
-{\tt $\backslash$|} applies to the largest possible surrounding expressions. 
-Only a surrounding {\tt $\backslash$( ... $\backslash$)} grouping can limit the grouping
-power of {\tt $\backslash$|}.
-
-Full backtracking capability exists when multiple {\tt $\backslash$|}'s are used.
-
-\item \rtfsp
-{\tt $\backslash$( ... $\backslash$)} 
-is a grouping construct that serves three purposes:
-\begin{enumerate}
-\item To enclose a set of {\tt $\backslash$|} alternatives for other operations.
-Thus, {\tt $\backslash$(foo$\backslash$|bar$\backslash$)x} matches either {\tt foox} or {\tt barx}.
-\item To enclose a complicated expression for the postfix {\tt *} to
-operate on. Thus, {\tt ba$\backslash$(na$\backslash$)*} matches {\tt bananana}, etc.,
-with any (zero or more) number of {\tt na}'s.
-\item To mark a matched substring for future reference.
-\end{enumerate}
-
-This last application is not a consequence of the idea of a
-parenthetical grouping; it is a separate feature which happens
-to be assigned as a second meaning to the same {\tt $\backslash$( ... $\backslash$)} 
-construct because there is no conflict in practice between the
-two meanings. Here is an explanation of this feature:
-
-\item \rtfsp
-{\tt $\backslash$DIGIT} 
-After the end of a {\tt $\backslash$( ... $\backslash$)} construct, the matcher remembers
-the beginning and end of the text matched by that construct. 
-Then, later on in the regular expression, you can use {\tt $\backslash$}
-followed by DIGIT to mean "match the same text matched the
-DIGIT'th time by the {\tt $\backslash$( ... $\backslash$)} construct."  The {\tt $\backslash$( ... $\backslash$)}
-constructs are numbered in order of commencement in the regexp.
-
-The strings matching the first nine {\tt $\backslash$( ... $\backslash$)} constructs
-appearing in a regular expression are assigned numbers 1 through
-9 in order of their beginnings. {\tt $\backslash$1} through {\tt $\backslash$9} may be used
-to refer to the text matched by the corresponding {\tt $\backslash$( ... $\backslash$)} 
-construct.
-
-For example, {\tt $\backslash$(.*$\backslash$)$\backslash$1} matches any string that is composed of
-two identical halves. The {\tt $\backslash$(.*$\backslash$)} matches the first half,
-which may be anything, but the {\tt $\backslash$1} that follows must match the
-same exact text.
-
-\item \rtfsp
-{\tt $\backslash$b} 
-matches the empty string, but only if it is at the beginning or
-end of a word. Thus, {\tt $\backslash$bfoo$\backslash$b} matches any occurrence of {\tt foo}
-as a separate word. {\tt $\backslash$bball$\backslash$(s$\backslash$|$\backslash$)$\backslash$b} matches {\tt ball} or {\tt balls}
-as a separate word.
-
-\item \rtfsp
-{\tt $\backslash$B} 
-matches the empty string, provided it is *not* at the beginning
-or end of a word.
-
-\item \rtfsp
-{\tt $\backslash$<} 
-matches the empty string, but only if it is at the beginning of
-a word.
-
-\item \rtfsp
-{\tt $\backslash$>} 
-matches the empty string, but only if it is at the end of a word.
-
-\item \rtfsp
-{\tt $\backslash$w} 
-matches any word-constituent character.
-
-\item \rtfsp
-{\tt $\backslash$W} 
-matches any character that is not a word-constituent.
-
-\end{itemize}
-
-
-
-
-
-\section{wxString member functions}\label{wxstringcategories}
-
-\overview{Overview}{wxstringoverview}
-
-This section describes categories of \helpref{wxString}{wxstring} class
-member functions.
-
-TODO: describe each one briefly here.
-
-{\large {\bf Assigment}}
-
-\begin{itemize}\itemsep=0pt
-\item \helpref{wxString::operator $=$}{wxstringoperatorassign}\\
-\end{itemize}
-
-{\large {\bf Classification}}
-
-\begin{itemize}\itemsep=0pt
-\item \helpref{wxString::IsAscii}{wxstringIsAscii}
-\item \helpref{wxString::IsWord}{wxstringIsWord}
-\item \helpref{wxString::IsNumber}{wxstringIsNumber}
-\item \helpref{wxString::IsNull}{wxstringIsNull}
-\item \helpref{wxString::IsDefined}{wxstringIsDefined}
-\end{itemize}
-
-{\large {\bf Comparisons (case sensitive and insensitive)}}
-
-\begin{itemize}\itemsep=0pt
-\item \helpref{wxString::CompareTo}{wxstringCompareTo}
-\item \helpref{Compare}{wxstringCompare}
-\item \helpref{FCompare}{wxstringFCompare}
-\item \helpref{Comparisons}{wxstringComparison}
-\end{itemize}
-
-{\large {\bf Composition and Concatenation}}
-
-\begin{itemize}\itemsep=0pt
-\item \helpref{wxString::operator $+=$}{wxstringPlusEqual}
-\item \helpref{wxString::Append}{wxstringAppend}
-\item \helpref{wxString::Prepend}{wxstringPrepend}
-\item \helpref{wxString::Cat}{wxstringCat}
-\item \helpref{operator $+$}{wxstringoperatorplus}
-\end{itemize}
-
-{\large {\bf Constructors/Destructors}}
-
-\begin{itemize}\itemsep=0pt
-\item \helpref{wxString::wxString}{wxstringconstruct}
-\item \helpref{wxString::~wxString}{wxstringdestruct}
-\end{itemize}
-
-{\large {\bf Conversions}}
-
-\begin{itemize}
-\item \helpref{wxString::operator const char *}{wxstringoperatorconstcharpt}
-\item \helpref{wxString::Chars}{wxstringChars}
-\item \helpref{wxString::GetData}{wxstringGetData}
-\end{itemize}
-
-{\large {\bf Deletion/Insertion}}
-
-\begin{itemize}\itemsep=0pt
-\item \helpref{wxString::Del}{wxstringDel}
-\item \helpref{wxString::Remove}{wxstringRemove}
-\item \helpref{wxString::Insert}{wxstringInsert}
-\item \helpref{Split}{wxstringSplit}
-\item \helpref{Join}{wxstringJoin}
-\end{itemize}
-
-{\large {\bf Duplication}}
-
-\begin{itemize}\itemsep=0pt
-\item \helpref{wxString::Copy}{wxstringCopy}
-\item \helpref{wxString::Replicate}{wxstringReplicate}
-\end{itemize}
-
-{\large {\bf Element access}}
-
-\begin{itemize}\itemsep=0pt
-\item \helpref{wxString::operator[]}{wxstringoperatorbracket}
-\item \helpref{wxString::operator()}{wxstringoperatorparenth}
-\item \helpref{wxString::Elem}{wxstringElem}
-\item \helpref{wxString::Firstchar}{wxstringFirstchar}
-\item \helpref{wxString::Lastchar}{wxstringLastchar}
-\end{itemize}
-
-{\large {\bf Extraction of Substrings}}
-
-\begin{itemize}\itemsep=0pt
-\item \helpref{wxString::At}{wxstringAt}
-\item \helpref{wxString::Before}{wxstringBefore}
-\item \helpref{wxString::Through}{wxstringThrough}
-\item \helpref{wxString::From}{wxstringFrom}
-\item \helpref{wxString::After}{wxstringAfter}
-\item \helpref{wxString::SubString}{wxstringSubString}
-\end{itemize}
-
-{\large {\bf Input/Output}}
-
-\begin{itemize}\itemsep=0pt
-\item \helpref{wxString::sprintf}{wxstringsprintf}
-\item \helpref{wxString::operator \cinsert}{wxstringoperatorout}
-\item \helpref{wxString::operator \cextract}{wxstringoperatorin}
-\item \helpref{wxString::Readline}{wxstringReadline}
-\end{itemize}
-
-{\large {\bf Searching/Matching}}
-
-\begin{itemize}\itemsep=0pt
-\item \helpref{wxString::Index}{wxstringIndex}
-\item \helpref{wxString::Contains}{wxstringContains}
-\item \helpref{wxString::Matches}{wxstringMatches}
-\item \helpref{wxString::Freq}{wxstringFreq}
-\item \helpref{wxString::First}{wxstringFirst}
-\item \helpref{wxString::Last}{wxstringLast}
-\end{itemize}
-
-{\large {\bf Substitution}}
-
-\begin{itemize}\itemsep=0pt
-\item \helpref{wxString::GSub}{wxstringGSub}
-\item \helpref{wxString::Replace}{wxstringReplace}
-\end{itemize}
-
-{\large {\bf Status}}
-
-\begin{itemize}\itemsep=0pt
-\item \helpref{wxString::Length}{wxstringLength}
-\item \helpref{wxString::Empty}{wxstringEmpty}
-\item \helpref{wxString::Allocation}{wxstringAllocation}
-\item \helpref{wxString::IsNull}{wxstringIsNull}
-\end{itemize}
-
-{\large {\bf Transformations}}
-
-\begin{itemize}\itemsep=0pt
-\item \helpref{wxString::Reverse}{wxstringReverse}
-\item \helpref{wxString::Upcase}{wxstringUpcase}
-\item \helpref{wxString::UpperCase}{wxstringUpperCase}
-\item \helpref{wxString::DownCase}{wxstringDownCase}
-\item \helpref{wxString::LowerCase}{wxstringLowerCase}
-\item \helpref{wxString::Capitalize}{wxstringCapitalize}
-\end{itemize}
-
-{\large {\bf Utilities}}
-
-\begin{itemize}\itemsep=0pt
-\item \helpref{wxString::Strip}{wxstringStrip}
-\item \helpref{wxString::Error}{wxstringError}
-\item \helpref{wxString::OK}{wxstringOK}
-\item \helpref{wxString::Alloc}{wxstringAlloc}
-\item \helpref{wxCHARARG}{wxstringwxCHARARG}
-\item \helpref{CommonPrefix}{wxstringCommonPrefix}
-\item \helpref{CommonSuffix}{wxstringCommonSuffix}
-\end{itemize}
+This is quite a common situation and not allocating extra memory at all would
+lead to very bad performance in this case because there would be as many memory
+(re)allocations as there are consonants in the original string. Allocating too
+much extra memory would help to improve the speed in this situation, but due to
+a great number of wxString objects typically used in a program would also
+increase the memory consumption too much.
+
+The very best solution in precisely this case would be to use 
+\helpref{Alloc()}{wxstringalloc} function to preallocate, for example, len bytes
+from the beginning - this will lead to exactly one memory allocation being
+performed (because the result is at most as long as the original string).
+
+However, using Alloc() is tedious and so wxString tries to do its best. The
+default algorithm assumes that memory allocation is done in granularity of at
+least 16 bytes (which is the case on almost all of wide-spread platforms) and so
+nothing is lost if the amount of memory to allocate is rounded up to the next
+multiple of 16. Like this, no memory is lost and 15 iterations from 16 in the
+example above won't allocate memory but use the already allocated pool.
+
+The default approach is quite conservative. Allocating more memory may bring
+important performance benefits for programs using (relatively) few very long
+strings. The amount of memory allocated is configured by the setting of {\it
+EXTRA\_ALLOC} in the file string.cpp during compilation (be sure to understand
+why its default value is what it is before modifying it!). You may try setting
+it to greater amount (say twice nLen) or to 0 (to see performance degradation
+which will follow) and analyse the impact of it on your program. If you do it,
+you will probably find it helpful to also define WXSTRING\_STATISTICS symbol
+which tells the wxString class to collect performance statistics and to show
+them on stderr on program termination. This will show you the average length of
+strings your program manipulates, their average initial length and also the
+percent of times when memory wasn't reallocated when string concatenation was
+done but the already preallocated memory was used (this value should be about
+98\% for the default allocation policy, if it is less than 90\% you should
+really consider fine tuning wxString for your application).
+
+It goes without saying that a profiler should be used to measure the precise
+difference the change to EXTRA\_ALLOC makes to your program.
 
