Sorry, I didn't mean to mislead. I wrote "easily" - I guess using the current textwrap.dedent isn't really hard, but still, writing:
import textwrap ....
r = some_func(textwrap.dedent('''\ line1 line2'''))
Seems harder to me than simply
r = some_func('''\ line1 line2'''.dedent())
This example brings up another reason why "dedent" us a method is a good idea: It is a common convention to indent things according to the last opening bracket. "dedent" as a function makes the indentation grow in at least 7 characters, and in 16 characters if you don't do "from textwrap import dedent".
It's a common convention, but a rather ugly one. It makes harder breaking lines at 78-80 chars, and using long enough identifiers. I find it more useful to go straight to the next line, indenting the usual four spaces (and also separating nested stuff): r = some_func( textwrap.dedent( '''\ line1 line2''')) This style uses up more vertical space, but I find it also gives code a clearer overall shape. -- Nicola Larosa - nico@tekNico.net Use of threads can be very deceptive. [...] in almost all cases they also make debugging, testing, and maintenance vastly more difficult and sometimes impossible. http://java.sun.com/products/jfc/tsc/articles/threads/threads1.html#why