Most ECLiPSe
builtins that deliver text objects (like getcwd/2,
read_string/3,4 and many others) return strings.
Strings can be created and their contents may be read using the string
stream feature (cf. section 
).
By means of the builtins atom_string/2, string_list/2 and
term_string/2, strings can easily be converted to other data types.