# Project Strings: improving strings support || Blog Post #1 || GSoC **URL:** \ **Category:** GSoC-2021\ **Created:** [May 24, 2021, 9:19am UTC](https://fortran-lang.discourse.group/t/project-strings-improving-strings-support-blog-post-1-gsoc/1295 "2021-05-24T09:19:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Aman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/90ced4/32.png) [@Aman](https://fortran-lang.discourse.group/u/Aman)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2021, 9:19am UTC](https://fortran-lang.discourse.group/t/project-strings-improving-strings-support-blog-post-1-gsoc/1295/1 "2021-05-24T09:19:40Z")
Hello everyone!, This post is regarding GSoC project on [improving strings support](https://summerofcode.withgoogle.com/projects/#4976006198198272) in Fortran. The requirements of the project are such that the involvement of community will be fruitful for the overall acceptance of this string library as the “go-to” library for string operations in Fortran. Thus, I invite you all to improve Fortran by leaving your opinions/feedbacks on the functionalities that are being discussed on [Fortran’s issues page](https://github.com/fortran-lang/stdlib/issues). Many functionalities will be discussed upon throughout the course of the project one by one and hence I will keep you posted with the current status and discussions of the project through blog posts like this on this discourse group. If you have any functionality in your mind to propose or discuss, please feel free to tag me ([@Aman-Godara](https://github.com/Aman-Godara)). **currently in discussion:** 1). _intelligent slice functionality for strings_ [#413](https://github.com/fortran-lang/stdlib/issues/413) _Short Description_: Slice is an intelligent function which traverses the input string from start index to end index taking a stride of stride indexes to return a new string. Please use the above given link to know more about the functionality, linked PRs (Pull Requests) and to join the discussion. There are many things which are still left to be discussed and improved. Congratulations fellow interns! ---
**Author:** ![veryreverie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/dc4da7/32.png) [@veryreverie](https://fortran-lang.discourse.group/u/veryreverie)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2021, 9:46am UTC](https://fortran-lang.discourse.group/t/project-strings-improving-strings-support-blog-post-1-gsoc/1295/2 "2021-05-24T09:46:49Z")
This looks like a great idea. I’ve written slice functions like this in the past, and always felt like I was reinventing the wheel and that it should be in a standard library somewhere. I just wish Fortran let you write functions which take Fortran style `(a:b:c)` slices as arguments, so that you could write e.g. ```auto type(String) :: foo foo = 'abcdef' write(*,*) foo(2:6:2) ``` rather than ```auto type(String) :: foo foo = 'abcdef' write(*,*) slice(foo,2,6,2) ``` But as that’s not possible, the function you’ve proposed looks great. ---
**Author:** ![urbanjost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/0ea827/32.png) [@urbanjost](https://fortran-lang.discourse.group/u/urbanjost)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2021, 5:57pm UTC](https://fortran-lang.discourse.group/t/project-strings-improving-strings-support-blog-post-1-gsoc/1295/3 "2021-05-24T17:57:44Z")
Well, it is possible to use array syntax on the characters if you switch the string to an array of characters. It is getting better, but it was much more reliable to transfer an array of characters to C instead of a string as well so I have used a function to switch a string to an array of characters and vice-versa for similar functionality. If you had reason to stick the data into a named variable anyway it works very nicely. chars=switch(string) write(_,_)chars(1:10:2) and so on. But because the colon sequence only works with a named variable looking though some code I see some odd statements like “switch[[string(i:i),i=1,20,2)]” but you can do some interesting things with VERIFY and PACK and SCAN with the mask that PACK allows to easily do things with an array like delete all non-alphanumeric characters that can be handy. So I like the idea of slice, but maybe you would like the idea of a function to switch a character array to a string or vice-versa too as an alternative. ---
**Author:** ![billlong](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/71e660/32.png) [@billlong](https://fortran-lang.discourse.group/u/billlong)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2021, 1:24pm UTC](https://fortran-lang.discourse.group/t/project-strings-improving-strings-support-blog-post-1-gsoc/1295/4 "2021-05-25T13:24:03Z")
Keep in mind that you can “convert” a character variable to an array of single characters by argument association. For example: > cat test.f90 > program test > character(\*),parameter :: foo = “abcdef” > call sub(foo,1,6,2) > end program test subroutine sub(bar,i,j,k) character :: bar(\*) write ( \* , \* ) bar(i:j:k) end subroutine sub > ftn test.f90 > ./a.out > ace ---
**Author:** ![veryreverie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/dc4da7/32.png) [@veryreverie](https://fortran-lang.discourse.group/u/veryreverie)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2021, 2:19pm UTC](https://fortran-lang.discourse.group/t/project-strings-improving-strings-support-blog-post-1-gsoc/1295/5 "2021-05-25T14:19:19Z")
Both of these are good points. But I’d still really like it if it were possible to write derived types so that they used identical syntax to intrinsic types. I like how in Python a derived type can be “Pythonic”, i.e. it follows the python style guide, and so you can often know exactly what the class does without needing to look at any documentation. On the other hand, it is impossible to write a “Fortranic” derived type. There are several pieces of syntax (including array slicing, statements like `open` and `allocate`, array access more generally) which are ubiquitous when working with arrays and intrinsic types, but which cannot be used with derived types.