Re: [Python-Dev] PEP 30XZ: Simplified Parsing

skip@pobox.com wrote:

Trent> But if you don't want the EOLs? Example from some code of mine:

Trent>      raise MakeError("extracting '%s' in '%s' did not create the "
Trent>                      "directory that the Python build will expect: "
Trent>                      "'%s'" % (src_pkg, dst_dir, dst))

Trent> I use this kind of thing frequently. Don't know if others
Trent> consider it bad style.

I use it all the time. For example, to build up (what I consider to be) readable SQL queries:

rows = self.executesql("select cities.city, state, country"
                       "    from cities, venues, events, addresses"
                       "    where cities.city like %s"
                       "      and events.active = 1"
                       "      and venues.address = addresses.id"
                       "      and addresses.city = cities.id"
                       "      and events.venue = venues.id",
                       (city,))

I would be disappointed it string literal concatention went away.

Tripe-quoted strings are much easier here, and SQL is insensitive to the newlines and additional spaces. Why not just use

rows = self.executesql("""select cities.city, state, country from cities, venues, events, addresses where cities.city like %s and events.active = 1 and venues.address = addresses.id and addresses.city = cities.id and events.venue = venues.id""", (city,))

It also gives you better error messages from most database back-ends.

I realise it makes the constants slightly longer, but if that's an issue I'd have thought people would want to indent code with tabs and not spaces.

regards Steve