Can't do a multiline assignment!

[Steve Holden]

Gary Herron wrote:
> s0suk3 at gmail.com wrote:
>> On Apr 17, 10:54 am, colas.fran... at gmail.com wrote:
>>   
>>> On 17 avr, 17:40, s0s... at gmail.com wrote:
>>>
>>> Out of sheer curiosity, why do you need thirty (hand-specified and
>>> dutifully commented) names to the same constant object if you know
>>> there will always be only one object?
>>>     
>> I'm building a web server. The many variables are names of header
>> fields. One part of the code looks like this (or at least I'd like it
>> to):
>>
>> class RequestHeadersManager:
>>
>>     # General header fields
>>     Cache_Control               = \
>>     Connection                  = \
>>     Date                        = \
>>     Pragma                      = \
>>     Trailer                     = \
>>     Transfer_Encoding           = \
>>     Upgrade                     = \
>>     Via                         = \
>>     Warning                     = \
>>
>>     # Request header fields
>>     Accept                      = \
>>     Accept_Charset              = \
>>     Accept_Encoding             = \
>>     Accept_Language             = \
>>     Authorization               = \
>> ...
>>   
> 
> But.  *What's the point* of doing it this way.    I see 14 variables 
> being assigned a value, but I don't see the value, they are getting.   
> Reading this bit if code provides no useful information unless I'm 
> willing to scan down the file until I find the end of this mess.  And in 
> that scanning I have to make sure I don't miss the one single line that 
> does not end in a backslash.    (Your ellipsis conveniently left out the 
> *one* important line needed to understand what this code is doing,  but 
> even if you had included it, I'd have to scan *all* lines to understand 
> what a single value is being assigned.
> 
> There is *no way* you can argue that code is clearer than this:
> 
>     # General header fields
>     Cache_Control               = None
>     Connection                  = None
>     Date                        = None
>     Pragma                      = None
> ...
> 
Thank you, you saved me from making that point. It doesn't even seem 
like there's a need for each header to reference the same value (though 
in this case they will, precisely because there is only one None object).

regards
  Steve
-- 
Steve Holden        +1 571 484 6266   +1 800 494 3119
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