Peter Funk wrote, on 10 February 2000 13:14
Several possibilities to markup (tag) identifiers in doc strings:
1. #identifier# 2. [ident identifier] 3. *identifier* 4. 'identifier' 5. "identifier" 6. `identifier' 7. ^identifier
I've omitted the comments. 1 is Eddy's idea - I've commented elsewhere - it works but I don't like the look either (but it might still be the best solution). 2 is too verbose (where one of the sister threads to this started!). The simpler [identifier] variant was proposed in the earlier round of talks, and is my favourite, but suffers from the "Eddy objection" - that "[" and "]" are too valuable/used too much in Python to be reserved for this purpose (I *think* that's the problem). 3 can't be used because it already is (emphasis) - firstly someone might want to emphasise a cross reference (for example, me), and secondly you can't actually *distinguish* a cross reference from plain text automatically anyway (see the other thread) 4 and 5 both use quotes, which must suffer the "Eddy objection" (see 2), but also I don't think you can force people to choose quote styles in doc strings. 6 won't fly because "`" (that first quote char) is not in ISO 646 (or ASCII if you prefer) and I don't think it's a good idea to *require* non-646 text in doc strings (also, it's paired with "'", which is a valid character for other purposes, so that doesn't work well - yu'd get confusion over what the "'" was doing, I think). 7 would need a terminator, and can suffer the "Eddy problem". Personally I like [reference], but I'm comfortably expecting this to be solved by someone else in the implementation we eventually see (which I'm not writing, you note) and I'll use their choice... Tibs -- Tony J Ibbs (Tibs) http://www.tibsnjoan.demon.co.uk/ "How fleeting are all human passions compared with the massive continuity of ducks." - Dorothy L. Sayers, "Gaudy Night" My views! Mine! Mine! (Unless Laser-Scan ask nicely to borrow them.)