Re: `aset` on strings, changing the size in bytes

[Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org>]

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  > PE> Cool! That means we can do Stefan's request simply by reverting Kenichi
  > PE> Handa's patch that introduced the ability to change the byte length of a
  > PE> string (commit 3c9de1afcde82a99137721436c822059cce79b5b dated 2000-07-21
  > PE> 06:45:30 UTC), since that patch made the code explicitly disagree with the
  > PE> documentation. Though this leaves open the question of why Handa made that
  > PE> change in the first place.

This case used to work in the past, before support for non-ASCII
characters.  Since it is part of the natural domain of aset, the
failure to support it feels like a bug.  It made sense to add support
for that case, to make the function more complete.

I guess the documentation was not updated.

Normally I would say, let's update the manual now.  Slower support is
better than failing.

The point about perhaps changing GC is significant.  Perhaps that is
a good reason to leave that case unsupported.

-- 
Dr Richard Stallman
President, Free Software Foundation (https://gnu.org, https://fsf.org)
Internet Hall-of-Famer (https://internethalloffame.org)