Clarity currently strictly distinguishes between single-byte string-ascii and utf8 encoded unicode string-utf8, restricting these types from being mixed. However, an ASCII encoded string is already valid UTF8, per the specification of the latter.
It would be beneficial if Clarity considered string-ascii to be a subtype of string-utf8, where an ascii string can be used in place of utf8, but not the other way around.
With ascii being a subtype of utf8, Clarity no longer requires a prefixed u"Hello World" literal syntax for UTF-8 strings but can use the characters in the string to determine whether or not it should be considered ASCII. This eliminates an error-prone complication for developers as described in https://github.com/blockstack/stacks-blockchain/issues/2114
Clarity currently strictly distinguishes between single-byte
string-asciiand utf8 encoded unicodestring-utf8, restricting these types from being mixed. However, an ASCII encoded string is already valid UTF8, per the specification of the latter.It would be beneficial if Clarity considered
string-asciito be a subtype ofstring-utf8, where an ascii string can be used in place of utf8, but not the other way around.With ascii being a subtype of utf8, Clarity no longer requires a prefixed
u"Hello World"literal syntax for UTF-8 strings but can use the characters in the string to determine whether or not it should be considered ASCII. This eliminates an error-prone complication for developers as described in https://github.com/blockstack/stacks-blockchain/issues/2114