Book: Confusing sentence in 8.2 Strings

[istarus]

Hello,

I have been reading through the second edition of the book online and was confused by the following sentence in Chapter 8, section 2 ("Strings):

Similar to the String/Str naming, they often provide an owned and borrowed variant, just like String/&str.

What does it mean to have an asterisk in front of a type name? From what I understand, the asterisk is used to deference a borrowed reference, so I couldn't understand its meaning when in front of a type name.

I also did not understand the use of "Str" in the phrase "String/Str." What is Str in this context? From what I can recall, this is the only location where "Str" has appeared thus far.

I apologize if my question(s) were answered elsewhere in the book and/or I have overlooked something that was already explained!

Thank you very much for writing such a great book and making it available publicly for free! I am eagerly awaiting the print edition to arrive. :)

[steveklabnik]

So, the * was intended to mean "any". so like `OsString and CString are both *Strings, the \* covers their differences. That's also the *Str bit, OsStr and CStr.

However, uh, with pointers, I can see how this is confusing. I actually thought it was a rendering bug at first.

[carols10cents]

Yup, I agree this is confusing. I think the change will be small enough that we can get a fix in before print-- @steveklabnik do you have a rewording in mind?

[steveklabnik]

how about

See how those names all end in String or Str? They refer to owned and borrowed variants, just like the String and str types you've seen previously.

[istarus]

Thank you very much for the clarification and sorry for the delay in responding!

The proposed rewording sounds good. 👍