Capitalization of "String"

Question

I am writing a scientific text in the area of computer science. Often, I need to refer to a certain data structure named String which refers to a sequence of characters. In most programming languages, this needs to be capitalized in order to be correct. However, when I refer to that data structure in regular text, do I have to capitalize it?

I tried to do it like others do it but I have seen both.

Sample Sentences

1. A matcher might use a string-based matching strategy.
2. The string "hello world"...
3. On a general level, syntax refers to a set of rules that define how to structure characters and strings.
4. Each retrieved string from one ontology is compared to each retrieved string from the other ontology.
5. These kind of strings slow down the comparison process.

Answer 1

The proper noun String and the common noun string sound the same, but they are different things. The former refers to a particular data structure, on which you might be able to make function calls to get various attributes. The latter is merely a sequence of characters, with no programming support.

Your sample sentence #3 makes sense only with the common noun. All the other sample sentences would be understood differently depending on whether you use the common noun or the proper noun, though both variants are grammatical.

To answer your question: use the capitalised version for the proper noun and the sentence-case version for the common noun.

Answer 2

Use 'String' for explicitly pointing out the data type. For example, you may write "a variable of String data type" or you can write "a string variable".