4. Strings and Characters

A string in Emacs Lisp is an array that contains an ordered sequence of characters. Strings are used as names of symbols, buffers, and files; to send messages to users; to hold text being copied between buffers; and for many other purposes. Because strings are so important, Emacs Lisp has many functions expressly for manipulating them. Emacs Lisp programs use strings more often than individual characters.

See section 21.6.14 Putting Keyboard Events in Strings, for special considerations for strings of keyboard character events.

4.1 String and Character Basics		Basic properties of strings and characters.
4.2 The Predicates for Strings		Testing whether an object is a string or char.
4.3 Creating Strings		Functions to allocate new strings.
4.4 Modifying Strings		Altering the contents of an existing string.
4.5 Comparison of Characters and Strings		Comparing characters or strings.
4.6 Conversion of Characters and Strings		Converting to and from characters and strings.
4.7 Formatting Strings		format: Emacs's analogue of printf.
4.8 Case Conversion in Lisp		Case conversion functions.
4.9 The Case Table		Customizing case conversion.