auto merge of #16333 : steveklabnik/rust/guide_strings, r=brson

I _think_ this is the right place to introduce strings. It's a bit hard to talk about without understanding pointers and ownership, but you need to have some idea of what's going on...

Author: bors

src/doc/guide.md

@@ -1432,6 +1432,86 @@ building our guessing game, but we need to know how to do one last thing first:
 get input from the keyboard. You can't have a guessing game without the ability
 to guess!
 
+# Strings
+
+Strings are an important concept for any programmer to master. Rust's string
+handling system is a bit different than in other languages, due to its systems
+focus. Any time you have a data structure of variable size, things can get
+tricky, and strings are a re-sizable data structure. That said, Rust's strings
+also work differently than in some other systems languages, such as C.
+
+Let's dig into the details. A **string** is a sequence of unicode scalar values
+encoded as a stream of UTF-8 bytes. All strings are guaranteed to be
+validly-encoded UTF-8 sequences. Additionally, strings are not null-terminated
+and can contain null bytes.
+
+Rust has two main types of strings: `&str` and `String`.
+
+The first kind is a `&str`. This is pronounced a 'string slice.' String literals
+are of the type `&str`:
+
+```{rust}
+let string = "Hello there.";
+```
+
+This string is statically allocated, meaning that it's saved inside our
+compiled program, and exists for the entire duration it runs. The `string`
+binding is a reference to this statically allocated string. String slices
+have a fixed size, and cannot be mutated.
+
+A `String`, on the other hand, is an in-memory string.  This string is
+growable, and is also guaranteed to be UTF-8.
+
+```{rust}
+let mut s = "Hello".to_string();
+println!("{}", s);
+
+s.push_str(", world.");
+println!("{}", s);
+```
+
+You can coerce a `String` into a `&str` with the `as_slice()` method:
+
+```{rust}
+fn takes_slice(slice: &str) {
+    println!("Got: {}", slice);
+}
+
+fn main() {
+    let s = "Hello".to_string();
+    takes_slice(s.as_slice());
+}
+```
+
+To compare a String to a constant string, prefer `as_slice()`...
+
+```{rust}
+fn compare(string: String) {
+    if string.as_slice() == "Hello" {
+        println!("yes");
+    }
+}
+```
+
+... over `to_string()`:
+
+```{rust}
+fn compare(string: String) {
+    if string == "Hello".to_string() {
+        println!("yes");
+    }
+}
+```
+
+Converting a `String` to a `&str` is cheap, but converting the `&str` to a
+`String` involves allocating memory. No reason to do that unless you have to!
+
+That's the basics of strings in Rust! They're probably a bit more complicated
+than you are used to, if you come from a scripting language, but when the
+low-level details matter, they really matter. Just remember that `String`s
+allocate memory and control their data, while `&str`s are a reference to
+another string, and you'll be all set.
+
 # Standard Input
 
 Getting input from the keyboard is pretty easy, but uses some things