There one use of the backslash I couldn't find in the new draft.
It is used by abc2mtex to put tex code directly into the output file; see
paragraph 2.3.4 of the 1.6.1 docs. If the first character of a line is a
backslash, then abc2mtex simply passes the entire line along to tex. I've
found it useful: more than half the tunes in my private collection use it.
It might be useful for other programs too, and in any case, programs
should know enough to ignore the entire line when they encounter
it---which is what they all do now.
So the standard should have an entry something like:
A line beginning with a backslash is used by some programs to pass
information directly to the printing program: the entire line is passed.
This is legal anywhere but in the tune headers. Programs not implementing
this should ignore any line which begins with a backslash.
I think there's a slight wording problem with the use of the
backslash for continuation: we have
"A '%' symbol will cause the remainder of any input line to be ignored."
and we also have
"If the last (non-space) character on a line is a backslash (\), the next
line should be appended to the current one, overwriting the backslash and
anything that follows it, to make one long logical line."
(I presume that "anything that follows it" refers to spaces.)
Thus neither of the following will work:
abc def| gab CDE| % comments\
FGA BC| ...
abc def| gab CDE|\ % comments
FGA BC| ...
since the backslash will be ignored in the first example, and it isn't the
final non-space character on the line in the second. You probably want to
treat comments as white space.
Cheers,
John Walsh
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