[Python-ideas] Allowing comments after line continuations

[Terry Jan Reedy]

On 5/16/2013 6:26 PM, Greg Ewing wrote:
> Terry Jan Reedy wrote:
>> In a string, \ escapes the immediate next character. This idea of \ at
>> the *end* of a line, just before the newline character, is that it
>> escapes the newline, *just as is does within a string*.
>
> That's how it currently works, but that doesn't mean it's
> how it *should* work.

My point is that there is a logical consistency that makes the current 
behavior consistent to me.

> Especially if it leads to counter-intuitive

To me, having the \ below escape the newline that occurs 60 characters 
later is 'counter-intuitive'.

a + \ # a very long comment that seems to go on and on forever

The \ where it is looks to me like a stray typo and a bug. I would be 
less surprised if the code below worked, so my counter-proposal is that 
\ escaping of newline work after comments.

 >>> 1 + # current behavior \
SyntaxError: invalid syntax

 >>> 1 + # proposed behavior \
     2
3
 >>>

 > and less-than-useful behaviour, which IMO it does.

Useful is a different issue. My counte-proposal meets the goal of mixing 
comments with line-continuation.

Terry