Strings

String represents valid UTF-8 text. Write a string literal between double quotation marks:

local language = "Pop"
local greeting = "Olá, mundo!"
local symbol = "🫧"

Non-ASCII text is preserved. The compiler and runtime do not replace valid Unicode text with a byte-oriented approximation.

Escapes

Quoted strings accept portable escapes such as \\, \", \n, \r, \t, \0, \x41, and \u{1FAE7}:

local twoLines = "first\nsecond"
local quoted = "say \"Pop\""
local bubble = "\u{1FAE7}"

Concatenation

The Luau-shaped .. operator joins two strings:

local directory = "src"
local path = directory .. "/main.pop"

The numeric + operator intentionally does not concatenate strings. Convert a primitive explicitly before joining it:

local count = 3
local message = "count=" .. String(count)

String(value) formats String, Boolean, and every integer or floating-point primitive. It is not a universal toString operation and rejects arrays, tables, records, classes, and functions.

Interpolation

Backticks interpolate the same closed primitive set. Expressions inside braces are evaluated from left to right:

local count = 3
local enabled = true
local summary = `count={count}, enabled={enabled}`

Use \{, \}, and \`` for literal interpolation punctuation inside backticks. ${value}` is not Pop syntax.

Equality

== compares string contents, and ~= tests that the contents differ:

local expected = "Pop"
local actual = "Pop"
local same = expected == actual -- true

The comparison is by UTF-8 value, not by the identity of the managed string objects.

Printing

The Standard foundation provides print(String), which writes the string followed by a newline:

print("one line")
print("another line")

Alongside print(Int), this is the complete general output overload surface in rc.3. Concatenation, interpolation, and primitive formatting are language operations; library APIs for slicing, searching, changing case, parsing numbers, and inspecting Unicode characters are not yet exposed.

String composition may allocate managed storage. Formatting is deterministic and locale-independent: booleans use true/false, integers use base ten, and floating-point values use portable spellings including nan, inf, and -inf.

The String composition and formatting leaf collects the practical choice between .., backticks, and String(value).