GString functions

[Jamie Guinan <guinan bluebutton com>]

I'm looking at 

  http://developer.gnome.org/doc/API/2.0/glib/glib-Strings.html

where many of the GString functions return "GString *".

I understand that the ".str" member of a GString can change across
g_string_*() calls, but are there any guarantees about the returned
GString itself?

If given this,

   s = g_string_new("redhat");
   s = g_string_append(s, ".com");
  
is it safe to throw away the result of the _append(), as in,

   s = g_string_new("redhat");
   g_string_append(s, ".com");

?

The GString API has a distinctly lisp-ish feel, which tends to make me use
it in a lisp-like manner, but if I don't need to, I'd like to know.

I took a brief look at glib/gstring.c, and I *think* I'm Ok, but I thought
it would be good to ask here.

The lisp-ish API makes sense to me for the GLib string utility functions
(g_str*) where there is no separate storage, but I'm aiming to use
GString.

Actually, I wouldn't mind a GObject-based string class so I could track
GString and GObject references all together, but that would introduce a
3rd set of string operations to the G* family, and I don't see any use of
GObject classes in GLib (even though they're in the same tarball).  Just
thinking out loud...

Thanks,
-Jamie