-- `chars s` explodes a string into a list of single-char strings,
-- one per Unicode scalar. No sentinel leading/trailing empty strings —
-- empty input yields an empty list, not [""].
ascii>L t;chars "abc"
unicode>L t;chars "café"
empty>L t;chars ""
count>n;len (chars "hello")
-- run: ascii
-- out: [a, b, c]
-- run: unicode
-- out: [c, a, f, é]
-- run: empty
-- out: []
-- run: count
-- out: 5