Re: plpython function problem workaround

On Tue, 15 Mar 2005, Tom Lane wrote:

> "Sim Zacks" <sim@compulab.co.il> writes:
>> I've been looking at the possibility of having a planned CR in the source
>> code and I don't see a case where it would happen.
>
> Does python actually disallow newlines in string literals?  That is
>
>     x = 'foo
> bar'
>
> Whether you think this is good style is not the question --- is it
> allowed by the language?

You can with triple-quoting and by escaping it with backslash.
The following code, admitedly ugly, is valid python:

a = 'a\
bc'
print a

b = '''a
bc'''
print b

and produces:
abc
a
bc

as output. \<newline> in any non raw literal is allowed and ignored,
while a bare <newline> in a triple-quoted string literal is allowed
and retained.

Moreover, this is not an execise of bad style only. It's customary to
write docstrings as multiline triple-quoted string literals:

def afunction(a, b, c):
     """This is a function.

     Its arguments are:
      a - first argument
      b - second argument
      c - third argument.
     It does ans returns nothing.
     """
     pass

It's more or less the recommended way to document a function (or class
or module or whatever). See PEP 257 for more examples:
http://www.python.org/peps/pep-0257.html

So, to answer to your question, newlines are more than allowed in
string literals.

.TM.
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