Multiline code - trailing slash usage

[Ben Finney]

"abcd" <codecraig at gmail.com> writes:

> When do I need to use a trailing slash to separate code over multiple
> lines.
>
> For example:
>
> x = "hello world, this is my multiline " + \
>      "string!!!!"

You can either do that, or you can use parentheses:

    x = ( "foo" +
          "bar" )

Note that you can make this read better *and* be faster, because
Python's parser will concatenate adjacent string values into a single
string value before compilation:

    x = ( "foo"
          "bar" )

Both these result in x being bound to the string value "foobar". The
second example doesn't even involve a concatenation operation at
run-time.

> x = {'name' : \
>       'bob'}

Python allows parentheses '()', brackets '[]' and braces '{}' to
enclose multi-line statements.

    x = { 'name':
          "bob" }

> Do I need to use the "\" in the above examples?  When do i need to
> use it?

I almost never use it to extend a statement; only sometimes within a
triple-quoted string. Parentheses can be used just about anywhere you
might otherwise need backslash-escaped line breaks.

-- 
 \                            "My, your, his, hers, ours, theirs, its. |
  `\                  I'm, you're, he's, she's, we're, they're, it's." |
_o__)                              -- Anonymous, alt.sysadmin.recovery |
Ben Finney