On 6/19/07, Thomas Shackell <shackell@cs.york.ac.uk> wrote:

Neil Mitchell wrote:
> Perhaps:
>
> packString x = sum (map ord x) `seq` x
>
> Will give you what you need. That function should have the same
> strictness as the original packString.

Or alternatively the slightly less evil

packString x = foldr (\ y ys -> y `seq` y : ys) [] x

I tried this latter one & I tried ByteString.Char8 and both of them failed the same ways that the basic String did. Apparently PackedString is a strange duck.