[Python-ideas] Syntax for dedented strings

[Ben Finney]

Michael Foord <fuzzyman at gmail.com> writes:

> How about *another* string prefix for dedented strings:
>
> class Thing(object):
>     d"""
>     This text will be,
>     nicely dedented,
>     thank you very much.
>     """"

class Thing(object):
    """ This literal string contains leading and trailing whitespace.

        It also is indented. But none of that will show up when the
        docstring is processed and presented to the user.

        Because it is a docstring that conforms to PEP 257, the
        indentation will be handled properly by PEP-257 conformant
        docstring processors.

        <http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0257/#handling-docstring-indentation>_
        gives the specification for how indentation shall be handled by
        code that processes Python docstrings.

        The programmer inspecting the value of ‘__doc__’ will still see
        the leading, trailing, and indenting whitespace; but the
        programmer doing so isn't the recipient of the docstring as a
        docstring.

        So I don't see what problem there is to be solved.

        """
    pass

-- 
 \     “Guaranteed to work throughout its useful life.” —packaging for |
  `\                                          clockwork toy, Hong Kong |
_o__)                                                                  |
Ben Finney