In this section we compile text constants.

• §1. Runtime representation
• §2. Default value
• §3. Suppressing apostrophe substitution
• §4. Making literals

§1. Runtime representation. Literal texts arise from source text such as:

    let Q be "the quick brown fox";
    say "Where has that indolent hound got to?";

Note that only "the quick brown fox" is actually a constant value here; the text concerning the hound is turned directly into operands for Inter instructions for printing text, and never needs to be a value. The fox text, on the other hand, is being stored in Q, and you can only store values.

Text at runtime is stored in small blocks, always of size 2:

                        small block:
    Q ----------------> format
                        content

The format can be one of four possible alternatives at runtime, and the runtime system may dynamically switch between them; essentially it uses this to decompress text from its "packed" form to a character-accessible form only on demand.

The compiler generates only one of these formats: CONSTANT_PACKED_TEXT_STORAGE. In this format, the content can be either a packed string, or a function, so although there is no long block to make, we do always have something else to make besides the small block.

In this section, content will always be a packed string; in Text Substitutions it will always be a function.

inter_name *TextLiterals::small_block?Usage of TextLiterals::small_block:
§2, §4
Group Together - §2(inter_name *content) {
    inter_name *small_block = Enclosures::new_small_block_for_constant();
    TextLiterals::compile_value_to(small_block, content);
    return small_block;
}

void TextLiterals::compile_value_to?Usage of TextLiterals::compile_value_to:
Responses - §6(inter_name *at, inter_name *content) {
    packaging_state save = EmitArrays::begin_unchecked(at);
    EmitArrays::iname_entry(Hierarchy::find(CONSTANT_PACKED_TEXT_STORAGE_HL));
    EmitArrays::iname_entry(content);
    EmitArrays::end(save);
}

§2. Default value. The default text is empty:

inter_name *TextLiterals::default_text?Usage of TextLiterals::default_text:
§4
Default Values - §2.2(void) {
    return TextLiterals::small_block(Hierarchy::find(EMPTY_TEXT_PACKED_HL));
}

§3. Suppressing apostrophe substitution. We are allowed to flag one text where ordinary apostrophe-to-double-quote substitution doesn't occur: this is used for the title at the top of the source text, and nothing else.

int wn_quote_suppressed = -1;
void TextLiterals::suppress_quote_expansion(wording W) {
    wn_quote_suppressed = Wordings::first_wn(W);
}
int TextLiterals::suppressing_on?Usage of TextLiterals::suppressing_on:
§4(wording W) {
    if ((wn_quote_suppressed >= 0) &&
        (Wordings::first_wn(W) == wn_quote_suppressed)) return TRUE;
    return FALSE;
}

§4. Making literals. This was once a rather elegantly complicated algorithm involving searches on a red-black tree in order to compile the texts in alphabetical order, but in April 2021 that was replaced by an Inter pipeline stage which collates the text much later in the process. See Literal Text (in pipeline).

inter_name *TextLiterals::to_value?Usage of TextLiterals::to_value:
Emit - §9
Stored Action Literals - §1(wording W) {
    return TextLiterals::to_value_inner(W, FALSE);
}

inter_name *TextLiterals::to_value_unescaped(wording W) {
    return TextLiterals::to_value_inner(W, TRUE);
}

inter_name *TextLiterals::to_value_inner(wording W, int unesc) {
    int w1 = Wordings::first_wn(W);
    if (Wide::cmp(Lexer::word_text(w1), L"\"\"") == 0)
        return TextLiterals::default_text();

    inter_name *content_iname = Enclosures::new_iname(LITERALS_HAP, TEXT_LITERAL_HL);
    if (Task::wraps_existing_storyfile()) {
        Emit::text_constant_literal(content_iname, I"--");
    } else {
        TEMPORARY_TEXT(TLT)
        int options = CT_DEQUOTE;
        if (TextLiterals::suppressing_on(W) == FALSE) {
            if (unesc == FALSE) options += CT_EXPAND_APOSTROPHES;
            if (RTBibliographicData::in_bibliographic_mode()) {
                options += CT_RECOGNISE_APOSTROPHE_SUBSTITUTION;
                options += CT_RECOGNISE_UNICODE_SUBSTITUTION;
            }
        }
        TranscodeText::from_wide_string(TLT, Lexer::word_text(w1), options);
        Emit::text_constant_literal(content_iname, TLT);
        DISCARD_TEXT(TLT)
    }

    return TextLiterals::small_block(content_iname);
}