semi-concatenated strings

[Delaney, Timothy]

> From: Skip Montanaro [mailto:skip at pobox.com]
>
> long strings.  For example, I have code like this that 
> queries a database:
> 
>     rows = self.executesql("select cities.city, state, country"
>                        "    from cities, venues, events, addresses"
>                        "    where     cities.city like %s"
>                        "          and events.active = 1"
>                        "          and venues.address = addresses.id"
>                        "          and addresses.city = cities.id"
>                        "          and events.venue = venues.id",
>                            (city,))

[lines undented somewhat to prevent wrapping ...]

Just wondering Skip ... why would you write this rather than a triple-quoted
string?

rows = self.executesql("""
                       select cities.city, state, country
                       from   cities, venues, events, addresses
                       where  cities.city like %s
                              and events.active = 1
                                  and venues.address = addresses.id
                                  and addresses.city = cities.id
                                  and events.venue = venues.id
                       """, (city,))

which to me looks much cleaner and is much easier to modify.

Of course, I also would have bound the SQL to a name first ...

sql = """
    select cities.city, state, country
    from   cities, venues, events, addresses
    where  cities.city like %s
           and events.active = 1
           and venues.address = addresses.id
           and addresses.city = cities.id
           and events.venue = venues.id
"""

rows = self.executesql(sql.strip(), (city,))

I've yet to find a place where I've had a use for concatenating string
literals.

Tim Delaney