On Tue, Apr 4, 2023 at 7:19 AM Jonathan Crall <erote...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Would there be any downside to the Python CLI automatically dedenting the
> input string given to -c? I can't think of any case off the top of my head
> where it would make a previously valid program invalid. Unless I'm missing
> something this would strictly make previously invalid strings valid.
>
> Thoughts?
>
Very strong +1 to this. That would be useful and it doesn't seem like
there's a downside. I often make bash functions that pipe files or database
queries to Python for post-processing. I also sometimes resort to Ruby
because it's easy to write one-liners in Ruby and annoying to write
one-liners in python/bash.
I suppose there's some ambiguity in the contents of multi-line
"""strings""". Should indentation be stripped at all in that case? E.g.
python -c "
'''
some text
''''
"
But it seems simpler and easier to understand/document if you pre-process
the input like using an algorithm like this:
* If the first nonempty line has indentation, and all subsequent lines
either start with the same indentation characters or are empty, then remove
that prefix from those lines.
I think that handles cases where editors strip trailing spaces or the first
line is blank. So e.g.:
python -c "
some_code_here()
"
Then python receives something like "\n some_code_here\n"
python -c "
some_code here()
if some_some_other_code():
still_more_code()
"
Then python receives something like "\n some_code_here\n\n if ..."
This wouldn't handle cases where indentation is mixed and there is a first
line, e.g.:
python -c "first_thing()
if second_thing():
third_thing()
"
That seems simple enough to avoid, and raising a syntax error is reasonable
in that case.
Best wishes,
Lucas
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