PEP: 30xz
Title: Simplified Parsing
Version: $Revision$
Last-Modified: $Date$
Author: Jim J. Jewett
Status: Draft
Type: Standards Track
Content-Type: text/plain
Created: 29-Apr-2007
Post-History: 29-Apr-2007
Abstract
Python initially inherited its parsing from C. While this has
been generally useful, there are some remnants which have been
less useful for python, and should be eliminated.
+ Implicit String concatenation
+ Line continuation with "\"
+ 034 as an octal number (== decimal 28). Note that this is
listed only for completeness; the decision to raise an
Exception for leading zeros has already been made in the
context of PEP XXX, about adding a binary literal.
Rationale for Removing Implicit String Concatenation
Implicit String concatentation can lead to confusing, or even
silent, errors. [1]
def f(arg1, arg2=None): pass
f("abc" "def") # forgot the comma, no warning ...
# silently becomes f("abcdef", None)
or, using the scons build framework,
sourceFiles = [
'foo.c',
'bar.c',
#...many lines omitted...
'q1000x.c']
It's a common mistake to leave off a comma, and then scons complains
that it can't find 'foo.cbar.c'. This is pretty bewildering behavior
even if you *are* a Python programmer, and not everyone here is.
Note that in C, the implicit concatenation is more justified; there
is no other way to join strings without (at least) a function call.
In Python, strings are objects which support the __add__ operator;
it is possible to write:
"abc" + "def"
Because these are literals, this addition can still be optimized
away by the compiler.
Guido indicated [2] that this change should be handled by PEP, because
there were a few edge cases with other string operators, such as the %.
The resolution is to treat them the same as today.
("abc %s def" + "ghi" % var) # fails like today.
# raises TypeError because of
# precedence. (% before +)
("abc" + "def %s ghi" % var) # works like today; precedence makes
# the optimization more difficult to
# recognize, but does not change the
# semantics.
("abc %s def" + "ghi") % var # works like today, because of
# precedence: () before %
# CPython compiler can already
# add the literals at compile-time.
Rationale for Removing Explicit Line Continuation
A terminal "\" indicates that the logical line is continued on the
following physical line (after whitespace).
Note that a non-terminal "\" does not have this meaning, even if the
only additional characters are invisible whitespace. (Python depends
heavily on *visible* whitespace at the beginning of a line; it does
not otherwise depend on *invisible* terminal whitespace.) Adding
whitespace after a "\" will typically cause a syntax error rather
than a silent bug, but it still isn't desirable.
The reason to keep "\" is that occasionally code looks better with
a "\" than with a () pair.
assert True, (
"This Paren is goofy")
But realistically, that paren is no worse than a "\". The only
advantage of "\" is that it is slightly more familiar to users of
C-based languages. These same languages all also support line
continuation with (), so reading code will not be a problem, and
there will be one less rule to learn for people entirely new to
programming.
Rationale for Removing Implicit Octal Literals
This decision should be covered by PEP ???, on numeric literals.
It is mentioned here only for completeness.
C treats integers beginning with "0" as octal, rather than decimal.
Historically, Python has inherited this usage. This has caused
quite a few annoying bugs for people who forgot the rule, and
tried to line up their constants.
a = 123
b = 024 # really only 20, because octal
c = 245
In Python 3.0, the second line will instead raise a SyntaxError,
because of the ambiguity. Instead, the line should be written
as in one of the following ways:
b = 24 # PEP 8
b = 24 # columns line up, for quick scanning
b = 0t24 # really did want an Octal!
References
[1] Implicit String Concatenation, Jewett, Orendorff
http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-ideas/2007-April/000397.html
[2] PEP 12, Sample reStructuredText PEP Template, Goodger, Warsaw
http://www.python.org/peps/pep-0012
[3] http://www.opencontent.org/openpub/
Copyright
This document has been placed in the public domain.
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