php class has no `operator` behave like c++
so, it's quite different between user-defined-object and internal-variable-type

i suggest that wide-string type should be added.
which behave like wchar_t in vc, but more powerful

wide-string is not that mbstring
mbstring is an extension not internal type

every char of wide-string is wide-char(wchar), both ascii and multibyte-char
there's also a bunch of wide-string operating function in i18n
mbstring is so complexity that use more cpu-time
wide-string take more memory but simple to process

samples:
$str = "string"; // This is a normal string
$wstr = L"string"; // This is a wide-string
echo strlen($str); // 6
echo strlen($wstr); // also 6
echo memsize($wstr); // 6
echo memsize($wstr); // 12
echo $str == $wstr; // true
echo $str === $wstr; // false

"\x20"; // normal string
L"\x20"; // wide-string
L"\x4c3a"; // wide-string

and
echo preg_replace(L"/abc/", "def", "abcdef");
should also works for matching wide-string
if (strpos(L"abc", L"def") === false) .....;

see? quite different from "mbstring"
but.. if adding wchar_t support to every string function make it slower, i'd like to have a set of "w" prefix functions such as wstrcmp wstrpos wpreg_replace
not "mb" :p

if php preferer mbstring rather than wchar_t
at least, make mbstring internal, not as extension.
when compiled without mbstring, all mbstring-type is processed exactly like normal string.

that's all