I did not read all the discussion in detail, but in my opinion something that would be very useful in a library is

struct String{
	void *ptr;
	size_t _l;
	enum :size_t {
		MaskLen=((~cast(size_t)0)>>2)
	}
	enum :int {
		BitsLen=8*size_t.sizeof-2
	}
	size_t len(){
		return (_l & MaskLen);
	}
	int encodingId(){
		return cast(int)(_l>>BitsLen);
	}
}

plus stuff to simplify its creation from T[] arrays and getting T[] arrays from it.

this type would them be used where one wants a string without caring about its encoding, and without having to make all string accepting functions templates.
As it was explained by others many string operations are rather generic.
*this* is what I would have expected from string, not an alias to char[].

Fawzi
	

"Walter Bright" <newshound2@digitalmars.com> ÓÏÏÂÝÉÌ/ÓÏÏÂÝÉÌÁ × ÎÏ×ÏÓÔÑÈ ÓÌÅÄÕÀÝÅÅ: news:i24st1$12uh$1@digitalmars.com...
> Jerome M. Berger wrote:
>> And what about this one:
>>
>> void func(T) (T range) {
>>     foreach (elem; range)
>>         assert (is (typeof (elem) == ElementType!(T)));
>> }
>>
>> func ("azerty");
>> auto a = [ 1, 2, 3, 4, 5];
>> func (a);
>
> You can specialize the template for strings:
>
> void func(T:string)(T range) { ... }
>

Hmm. Theoreticaly a bit more general
 void func(T, U, V )(T rangeT, U rangeU, V rangeV) { ... }
 void func(T:string, U, V )(T rangeT, U rangeU, V rangeV) { ... }
 void func(T, U:string, V )(T rangeT, U rangeU, V rangeV) { ... }
 void func(T, U, V:string )(T rangeT, U rangeU, V rangeV) { ... }
 void func(T:string, U:string, V )(T rangeT, U rangeU, V rangeV) { ... }
 void func(T:string, U, V:string )(T rangeT, U rangeU, V rangeV) { ... }
 void func(T, U:string, V:string )(T rangeT, U rangeU, V rangeV) { ... }
 void func(T:string, U:string, V:string )(T rangeT, U rangeU, V rangeV) {
... }