On Wed, 9 Feb 2005, [iso-8859-1] Juancarlo Añez wrote:
> Why aren't there functions in the standard library to convert strings to
> lists of characters and back?

Because it's a bad idea. This has been discussed numerous times in this
mailing list, and if the mailing list search engine actually worked (like it
used to a few years ago) I'd tell you to search the archives.

> Haskell treats strings as lists of chars by default.

Just goes to show you that even really smart people can do some amazingly dumb
things.

Take a look at the SML Basis Library substrings for a smarter functional
approach to this issue.

-- Brian