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Generally, string is a flexible piece of rope or twine which is used
to tie, bind, or hang other objects.
La mia ipotesi è che il termine sia stato semplicemente derivato da questo, perché una serie sequenziale di testo lo assomiglia, inclusi i suoi usi tipici. Come altri hanno detto, ci sono molti altri significati per quanto riguarda l'informatica:
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In computer programming, a string is traditionally a sequence of
characters, either as a literal constant or as some kind of variable.
The latter may allow its elements to be mutated and/or the length
changed, or it may be fixed (after creation). A string is generally
understood as a data type and is often implemented as a byte (or word)
array that stores a sequence of elements, typically characters, using
some character encoding. A string may also denote more general array
data types and/or other sequential data types and structures; terms
such as byte string, or more general, string of datatype, or
datatype-string, are sometimes used to denote strings in which the
stored data does not (necessarily) represent text.