[Python-ideas] triple-quoted strings and indendation

[Terry Reedy]

On 5/11/2011 12:44 PM, Matthias Lehmann wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> two times in one day I read about the problems of triple-quoted strings
> and indendation (one time on stackoverflow, one time one this list).
> Python is well known for its readability and its use of idendation to
> this end. But with triple-quoted strings, nice indendation is not
> possible without the need to post-process the resulting string.

Three partial solutions:

1. Strings are constants. Define them at the top of the module, in 
global scope. I remember seeing this promoted as a good coding practice 
once -- easy to find, modify, translate.

text = '''\
LIne 1
linklnlsf 2

and finally, we are done.
'''

I would consider this for strings, at least long strings, displayed to 
end-users, with mnemonic names.

2. For doc strings, especially for top level classes, do not worry.

def whip_up(**args):
     '''Return some delicious munchies made from inputs.
     The keyword values should be edible and preferably yummy.
     Whip_up will do the best it can which what you give it.
     '''

Having help(whip_up) print

Return some delicious munchies made from inputs.
     The keyword values should be edible and preferably yummy.
     Whip_up will do the best it can which what you give it.

is not a problem. It might even be a virtue.

3. 'It is not necessarily so bad.' I have a test function with several 
tests that compares an expected string, given as a literal, to actual 
output captured with StringIO. Since this is a test_main in the file, 
run with __name__ == '__main__', I do not want to put the strings in the 
main part of the file (1 above). At first, the following bothered me.

     expected = '''\
Line 1
Line 2
'''

I like Python's indentation! But it does not bother me so much anymore. 
IDLE colors the literals green, so they can be semi-ignored. Having the 
full screen width available can be a plus.

If I were using textwrap.dedent much, I might give it a short nickname 
like 'de' would be visible while I want see it but ignorable when I do 
not. If one wants a custom dedent rule, like the one you described, 
write a custom function.

-- 
Terry Jan Reedy