Strings
-------

.. seealso::

    .. toctree::
        :maxdepth: 3
        
        strfun.rst
        sscanf.rst

----

.. function:: sprint

    .. tab:: Python
    
        Syntax:
            ``n.sprint(strdef, "format", args)``

        Description:
            Prints to a NEURON (i.e. not Python) string. See :func:`printf` for the description of the format.

        Example:

            .. code-block::
                python

                from neuron import n

                strdef = n.ref('')
                n.sprint(strdef, 'There are %d %s.', 3, 'dendrites')
                print(strdef[0])

        .. note::

            Similar functionality is available for Python strings using the ``%`` operator or (for Python 2.6+) a
            string object's ``format`` method or (for Python 3.6+) with f-strings. 
            As Python strings are immutable, these approaches each create a new string.

            We can also use f-strings to update NEURON strings by writing to ``strdef[0]``; for example:

            .. code-block::
                python

                from neuron import n

                strdef = n.ref('')
                num_parts = 3
                part = "dendrites"
                strdef[0] = f'There are {num_parts} {part}.'
                print(strdef[0])



    .. tab:: HOC


        Syntax:
            ``sprint(strdef, "format", args)``
        
        
        Description:
            Prints to a string. See :func:`printf` for the description of the format.
        
----

.. function:: strcmp

    .. tab:: Python
    
        Syntax:
            ``x = n.strcmp("string1", "string2")``

        Description:
            Returns negative, 0, or positive value 
            depending on how the strings compare lexicographically. 
            0 means they are identical. A positive value indicates
            ``string1`` comes after ``string2``. This is a thin wrapper around
            the C standard library function ``strcmp`` and returns the
            same values it would return.

            Note: ``string1`` and ``string2`` must contain *only* ASCII characters.
            All strings (whether or not they contain unicode) may be compared
            directly in Python via ``<``, ``>``, ``==``, etc.

            For example ``"apical" < "basal"`` would return ``True``.

            Note that accented characters are not treated as equal to their
            non-accented counterparts. For example, ``"soma" == "sóma"`` would
            return ``False``.
            If you wish for accented and non-accented characters to be compared
            equal, one solution would be to use the third-party ``unidecode`` module,
            available via ``pip install unidecode``, to remove accents before running
            the comparison.

    .. tab:: HOC


        Syntax:
            ``x = strcmp("string1", "string2")``
        
        
        Description:
            return negative, 0, or positive value 
            depending on how the strings compare lexicographically. 
            0 means they are identical.