A rope is a data structure used to represent strings. Ropes are typically implemented with B-trees of (possibly immutable) strings.

The Tk [text] widget uses a B-tree to store textual data along with tags, so it's some sort of augmented rope, where each node has associated metadata. TIP #169 [http://tip.tcl.tk/169] (Add Peer Text Widgets), implemented in Tk8.5, already involved uncoupling the B-Tree from the widget. A native rope object type could be used to push this idea even further, by allowing data sharing outside of text widgets. For example, a comment dated 24Jan2004 on the [text] page expresses the wish to share this structure with [tdom].

The B-Tree code used in the [text] widget could serve as a basis for a rope object type, as the code is mature and widely tested.

[Cloverfield] suggests that ropes be used in place of flat strings as the primary string representation in Tcl.

See [http://www.cs.ubc.ca/local/reading/proceedings/spe91-95/spe/vol25/issue12/spe986.pdf] for a real-world implementation of ropes in C ("C Cords").

SGI provides a rope template class in its STL implementation [http://www.sgi.com/tech/stl/Rope.html].
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See also [Abstract Data Types].
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