[Python-Dev] PEP 30XZ: Simplified Parsing

[Ron Adam]

Georg Brandl wrote:
> FWIW, I'm -1 on both proposals too. I like implicit string literal concatenation
> and I really can't see what we gain from backslash continuation removal.
> 
> Georg

-1 on removing them also.  I find they are helpful.


It could be made optional in block headers that end with a ':'. It's 
optional, (just more white space), in parenthesized expressions, tuples, 
lists, and dictionary literals already.

 >>> [1,\
... 2,\
... 3]
[1, 2, 3]

 >>> (1,\
... 2,\
... 3)
(1, 2, 3)

 >>> {1:'a',\
... 2:'b',\
... 3:'c'}
{1: 'a', 2: 'b', 3: 'c'}

The rule would be any keyword that starts a block, (class, def, if, elif, 
with, ... etc.), until an unused (for anything else) colon, would always 
evaluate to be a single line weather or not it has parentheses or line 
continuations in it.  These can never be multi-line statements as far as I 
know.

The back slash would still be needed in console input.



The following inconsistency still bothers me, but I suppose it's an edge 
case that doesn't cause problems.

 >>> print r"hello world\"
   File "<stdin>", line 1
     print r"hello world\"
                         ^
SyntaxError: EOL while scanning single-quoted string
 >>> print r"hello\
...         world"
hello\
         world

In the first case, it's treated as a continuation character even though 
it's not at the end of a physical line. So it gives an error.

In the second case, its accepted as a continuation character, *and* a '\' 
character at the same time. (?)

Cheers,
    Ron