Deprecate LSL String functions by tapple · Pull Request #74 · secondlife/lsl-definitions

tapple · 2026-03-13T16:36:11Z

Part of https://feedback.secondlife.com/slua-alpha/p/remove-duplicated-luau-methods-from-ll-table

Functions I don't expect to be controversial:

Extracted to their own PR: Deprecate llStringLength and llBase64 #76
ll.Base64ToInteger
ll.Base64ToString
ll.StringToBase64
ll.StringLength

Functions that might be controversial:

ll.GetSubString
ll.SubStringIndex
ll.DeleteSubString
ll.ReplaceSubString
ll.Ord
ll.Char

Functions I'm considering deprecating the luau version of instead:

Deprecate string.lower in favor of ll.ToLower #77
ll.ToUpper
ll.ToLower

tapple · 2026-03-13T16:56:07Z

generated/slua_default.d.luau

  DeleteKeyValue: (Key: string) -> uuid,
  DeleteSubList: <T>(Source: {T}, Start: number, End: number) -> {T},
-  DeleteSubString: (Source: string, Start: number, End: number) -> string,
+  DeleteSubString: @[deprecated {use='string.sub'}](Source: string, Start: number, End: number) -> string,


takes byte index rather than codepoint index

tapple · 2026-03-13T16:56:18Z

generated/slua_default.d.luau

  GetStaticPath: (Start: vector, End: vector, Radius: number, Parameters: list) -> {any},
  GetStatus: (StatusFlag: number) -> boolean,
-  GetSubString: (String: string, Start: number, End: number) -> string,
+  GetSubString: @[deprecated {use='string.sub'}](String: string, Start: number, End: number) -> string,


takes byte index rather than codepoint index

tapple · 2026-03-13T16:56:47Z

generated/slua_default.d.luau

+  StringToBase64: @[deprecated {use='llbase64.encode'}](Text: string) -> string,
  StringTrim: (Text: string, TrimType: number) -> string,
-  SubStringIndex: (Text: string, Sequence: string) -> number?,
+  SubStringIndex: @[deprecated {use='string.find'}](Text: string, Sequence: string) -> number?,


returns byte index rather than codepoint index

tapple · 2026-03-13T16:57:26Z

generated/slua_default.d.luau

  ReplaceAgentEnvironment: (agent_id: uuid, transition: number, environment: string | uuid) -> number,
  ReplaceEnvironment: (position: vector, environment: string | uuid, track_no: number, day_length: number, day_offset: number) -> number,
-  ReplaceSubString: (InitialString: string, SubString: string, NewSubString: string, Count: number) -> string,
+  ReplaceSubString: @[deprecated {use='string.gsub'}](InitialString: string, SubString: string, NewSubString: string, Count: number) -> string,


Not equivilant if the pattern contains regex characters

tapple · 2026-03-13T16:58:27Z

generated/slua_default.d.luau

  WorldPosToHUD: (world_pos: vector) -> vector,
  XorBase64: (Text1: string, Text2: string) -> string,
  XorBase64Strings: @[deprecated {use='ll.XorBase64'}](Text1: string, Text2: string) -> string,
  XorBase64StringsCorrect: @[deprecated {use='ll.XorBase64'}](Text1: string, Text2: string) -> string,


Surprised there isn't a buffer.xor to replace this with

tapple · 2026-03-13T17:01:20Z

generated/slua_default.d.luau

  HTTPRequest: (URL: string, Parameters: list, Body: string) -> uuid,
  HTTPResponse: (HTTPRequestID: uuid, Status: number, Body: string) -> (),
  Hash: (value: string) -> number,
  InsertString: (TargetVariable: string, Position: number, SourceVariable: string) -> string,


I thought of deprecating ll.InsertString in favor of string interpolation, but, I don't think it's a good replacement

Kristyku · 2026-03-13T18:05:18Z

ll.Ord
ll.Char
ll.ToUpper
ll.ToLower

Cannot be deprecated, they support Unicode while Luau does not.

Suzanna-Linn · 2026-03-13T18:32:35Z

generated/slua_default.d.luau

  TextBox: (AvatarID: uuid, Text: string, Channel: number) -> (),
-  ToLower: (Text: string) -> string,
-  ToUpper: (Text: string) -> string,
+  ToLower: @[deprecated {use='string.lower'}](Text: string) -> string,


ll.ToLower()is useful with accents:

print(string.lower("CAFÉ")) -- > cafÉ print(ll.ToLower("CAFÉ")) -- > café

print(string.lower("ДдAa")) -- Ддaa print(ll.ToLower("ДдAa")) -- ддaa

Sounds like maybe string.lower should be deprecated instead

Suzanna-Linn · 2026-03-13T18:33:47Z

generated/slua_default.d.luau

-  ToLower: (Text: string) -> string,
-  ToUpper: (Text: string) -> string,
+  ToLower: @[deprecated {use='string.lower'}](Text: string) -> string,
+  ToUpper: @[deprecated {use='string.upper'}](Text: string) -> string,


ll.ToUpper()is useful with accents:

print(string.upper("café")) -- > CAFé print(ll.ToUpper("café")) -- > CAFÉ

tapple · 2026-03-13T18:35:01Z

generated/slua_default.d.luau

-  ToLower: (Text: string) -> string,
-  ToUpper: (Text: string) -> string,
+  ToLower: @[deprecated {use='string.lower'}](Text: string) -> string,
+  ToUpper: @[deprecated {use='string.upper'}](Text: string) -> string,


print(string.upper("ДдAa")) -- ДдAA print(ll.ToUpper("ДдAa")) -- ДДAA

sounds like maybe string.upper should be deprecated instead

Suzanna-Linn · 2026-03-13T18:35:46Z

I think that most of the LL string functions are useful when working with extended characters.

The advantage of the SLua string library is that is faster (because they don't need to look at what kind of characters are in the string).

The best is to use ones or the others depending on what strings we have.

Kristyku · 2026-03-13T18:37:51Z

Here's code:

print("Дд")
print("Luau Lower: " .. string.lower("Дд"))
print("Luau Upper: " .. string.upper("Дд"))

print("SL Lower: " .. ll.ToLower("Дд"))
print("SL Upper: " .. ll.ToUpper("Дд"))

print("Luau Ord: " .. string.byte("Д"))
print("SL Ord: " .. ll.Ord("Д", 1))

local x = pcall(function() return string.char(1044) end)
print("Luau Char: " .. tostring(x))
print("SL Char: " .. ll.Char(1044))

and the output:

Object: Дд
Object: Luau Lower: Дд
Object: Luau Upper: Дд
Object: SL Lower: дд
Object: SL Upper: ДД
Object: Luau Ord: 208
Object: SL Ord: 1044
Object: Luau Char: false
Object: SL Char: Д

tapple · 2026-03-13T18:41:48Z

generated/slua_default.d.luau

  OpenFloater: (floater_name: string, url: string, params: list) -> number,
  OpenRemoteDataChannel: @deprecated () -> (),
-  Ord: (value: string, index: number) -> number,
+  Ord: @[deprecated {reason="Use 'utf8.codepoint' or 'string.byte' instead."}](value: string, index: number) -> number,


I can't find an issue with ord:

print("Luau Ord: " .. utf8.codepoint("Д")) -- 1044 print("SL Ord: " .. ll.Ord("Д", 1)) -- 1044

Takes byte index rather than codepoint index:

print(ll.Ord("ДД", 2)) -- 1044 print(utf8.codepoint("ДД", 2)) -- invalid UTF-8 code print(utf8.codepoint("ДД", 3)) -- 1044

tapple · 2026-03-13T18:44:23Z

generated/slua_default.d.luau

  CastRay: (Start: vector, End: vector, Options: list) -> {any},
  Ceil: (Value: number) -> number,
-  Char: (value: number) -> string,
+  Char: @[deprecated {reason="Use 'utf8.char' or 'string.char' instead."}](value: number) -> string,


I can't find an issue with char:

print("Luau Char: " .. utf8.char(1044)) -- Д print("SL Char: " .. ll.Char(1044)) -- Д

It would be good to do a full spectrum check, as per the caveats I added on the wiki page for llChar

wrote a verification script:

for i = 0, 0x10FFFF do --for i = 0, 0x10 do --for i = 0xFFEE, 0x10FFFF do --for i = 0xD800, 0xFFFF do if 0xD800 <= i and i < 0xE000 then -- surrogate pairs local luau_char = utf8.char(i) local utf8_raw = string.char( bit32.bor(0xE0, bit32.rshift(i, 12)), bit32.bor(0x80, bit32.band(0x3F, bit32.rshift(i, 6))), bit32.bor(0x80, bit32.band(0x3F, i)) ) assert(luau_char == utf8_raw)--, string.format('utf8.char(0x%x) incorrect', i)) local luau_ord_valid, luau_ord = pcall(utf8.codepoint, luau_char) assert(not luau_ord_valid)--, string.format('"utf8.codepoint("\\u{%x}") did not error', i)) assert(luau_ord == "invalid UTF-8 code") -- lsl silliness -- assert(ll.Char(i) == '\u{FFFD}')--, string.format('ll.Char(0x%x) incorrect', i)) assert(ll.Ord(luau_char, 1) == 0x3F)--, string.format('ll.Ord("\\u{%x}", 1) incorrect', i)) else local lsl_char = ll.Char(i) local luau_char = utf8.char(i) local lsl_ord = ll.Ord(luau_char, 1) local luau_ord = utf8.codepoint(luau_char) assert(luau_ord == i)--, string.format('utf8.codepoint("%s") = 0x%x ~= 0x%x', luau_char, luau_ord, i)) if 0xFFFE <= i and i <= 0xFFFF then -- lsl silliness -- assert(lsl_char == '\u{FFFD}')--, string.format('ll.Char(0x%x) incorrect', i)) elseif i == 0 then -- lsl silliness -- assert(lsl_char == '')--, string.format('ll.Char(0x%x) incorrect', i)) else assert(lsl_char == luau_char)--, string.format('ll.Char(0x%x) = "%s" ~= utf8.char(0x%x) = "%s"', i, lsl_char, i, luau_char)) end if 0xFFFE == i then -- lsl silliness -- assert(lsl_ord == 0x3F)--, string.format('ll.Ord("\\u{%x}", 1) incorrect', i)) else assert(lsl_ord == i)--, string.format('ll.Ord("%s") = 0x%x ~= 0x%x', luau_char, lsl_ord, i)) end end end print("done")

Added the new caveat about llOrd(<surrogate>) returning 0x3F to the wiki: https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/LlOrd

Noted what utf8.char does on the wiki: https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/LlChar

tapple added 2 commits March 13, 2026 09:35

Deprecate LSL String functions

f71e692

deprecate llDeleteSubString and llReplaceSubString

ccdcd0a

tapple commented Mar 13, 2026

View reviewed changes

Suzanna-Linn reviewed Mar 13, 2026

View reviewed changes

tapple commented Mar 13, 2026

View reviewed changes

This was referenced Mar 13, 2026

Deprecate llStringLength and llBase64 #76

Open

Deprecate string.lower in favor of ll.ToLower #77

Open

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tapple commented Mar 13, 2026 •

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