Multiple pattern-matching concatenations for the single string

It's pretty easy to split and compare the string literal that way. Just like below:

iex(1)> "r" <> _ = "run"
"run"

The problem, though, appears as soon as you try to assign parts of the string twice in the single pattern-match clause. Just like here:

iex(2)> "f" <> _a <> "rre" <> _b <> "t" = "forrest"
** (ArgumentError) the left argument of <> operator inside a match should always be a literal binary because its size cant be verified.

Why? Because, simply, at that complexity level, you might imagine a case with more than one assignment problem solution. Just take a look at the beekeeper's problem example:

iex(3)> "a" <> hive1 <> "b" <> hive2 <> "c" = "abbbbbc"

How do you (and compiler/interpreter) know how many b's are assigned either to the hive1 and hive2? There is more than one possibility. Like

• hive2 = "bbb" + hive2 = "b"
• hive2 = "bb" + hive2 = "bb"
• hive2 = "b" + hive2 = "bbb"

So, what to do? Bitstrings! Or, actually - binaries, which are just bitstrings having divisible by 8 number of bits. Using the power of bytes counting, you can now just use them inside the pattern-match clause.

iex(4)> "f" <> <<_o>> <> "rre" <> <<_s>> <> "t" = "forrest"
"forrest"

iex(5)> "f" <> <<_o, _r, _r>> <> "est" = "forrest"
"forrest"

In most of the cases, it will work well as above. Sometimes, though, you might encounter multi-byte characters. Just like e.g. ü, which fills two of them.

iex(6)> "f" <> <<_>> <> "rrest" = "forrest"
"forrest"

iex(7)> "f" <> <<_>> <> "rrest" = "fürrest"
** (MatchError) no match of right hand side value: "fürrest"

iex(7)> "f" <> <<_, _>> <> "rrest" = "fürrest"
"fürrest"

An easy workaround for that is just to use the ::utf8 modifier.

iex(8)> "f" <> <<_::utf8>> <> "rrest" = "forrest"
"forrest"
iex(9)> "f" <> <<_::utf8>> <> "rrest" = "fürrest"
"fürrest"

Happy hacking!