[swift-evolution] multi-line string literals

[Jason Dusek]

The only point worth mentioning is that Python's syntax doesn't handle
indentation in a useful way. It's created a lot of trouble for me and
others over the years.

On Wed, 16 Dec 2015 at 10:58, Dave Abrahams via swift-evolution <
swift-evolution at swift.org> wrote:

>
> On Dec 16, 2015, at 10:47 AM, Chris Lattner via swift-evolution <
> swift-evolution at swift.org> wrote:
>
> On Dec 16, 2015, at 10:34 AM, Jordan Rose via swift-evolution <
> swift-evolution at swift.org> wrote:
>
> IOW, 'x' where x must be a Character, that is, an extended Unicode
> grapheme cluster — represented in the source code as UTF8 or with the \u
> notation. A shortcut for typing Character("x").
>
>
> We actually had this at one point, but it turned out that sometimes you
> wanted a Character and sometimes a UnicodeScalar, and in both cases your
> algorithm was probably wrong (cf. String is no longer a CollectionType). At
> that point it didn't offer any benefits over just regular string syntax,
> and it freed up the syntax for *something* else.
>
> There's a fair amount of precedent for single-quoted strings being:
> - single characters (C, Java, C#)
> - unprocessed strings (shell scripts, Ruby)
> - exactly the same as double-quoted strings (Python)
>
> I (personally) wouldn't want them for multi-line literals, though.
>
>
> I agree that this would be weird syntax for multi-line literals:
>
>
> let x = ‘
> stuff
> more stuff’
>
> On the other hand, It could be a reasonable design to say that ‘xyz’
> strings are a dual to “xyz” strings that disable escape expansion.  If you
> did that, then you could end up with a world where multi-line strings could
> be either:
>
> let x = “””
> stuff with\tescapes \(42)
> “””
>
> and:
>
> let x = ‘''
> escapes\(42)not processed!\n
> ‘''
>
> Please ignore the “smart” quotes above :-)
>
>
> I said this during the Swift 1 runup, and I'll say it again: Python has a
> design for this stuff that works.  They didn't make any changes to it
> between Python 2 and 3, so it has proven itself with many generations of
> programmer. I still don't see any reason to invent something new.
>
> -Dave
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> swift-evolution mailing list
> swift-evolution at swift.org
> https://lists.swift.org/mailman/listinfo/swift-evolution
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://lists.swift.org/pipermail/swift-evolution/attachments/20151216/2a2903fd/attachment.html>