assigning multi-line strings to variables
Steven D'Aprano
steven at REMOVE.THIS.cybersource.com.au
Thu Apr 29 02:34:38 EDT 2010
On Thu, 29 Apr 2010 02:16:46 +0100, MRAB wrote:
> Steven D'Aprano wrote:
>> On Thu, 29 Apr 2010 06:17:42 +1000, Lie Ryan wrote:
>>
>>>> Consider that the concatenation language feature probably is there
>>>> because it's useful (e.g. it preserves indentation and allows per
>>>> line comments).
>>> No, the implicit concatenation is there because Python didn't always
>>> have triple quoted string.
>>
>> Do you have a source for that?
>>
>> Both triple-quoted strings and implicit concatenation go back to at
>> least Python 1.4:
>>
>> http://docs.python.org/release/1.4/tut/node71.html
>> http://docs.python.org/release/1.4/tut/node70.html
>>
> The page here:
>
> http://svn.python.org/projects/python/branches/py3k/Misc/HISTORY
>
> says release 1.0.2 (4 May 1994).
Yes, it says:
* String literals follow Standard C rules: they may be continued
on the next line using a backslash; adjacent literals are
concatenated at compile time.
* A new kind of string literals, surrounded by triple quotes
(""" or '''), can be continued on the next line without a
backslash.
These are adjacent entries in the same release. That's pretty good
evidence that both implicit concatenation and triple quotes were
introduced at the same time.
--
Steven
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