If you are changing the parser (which is a major change) you might consider treating strings in the C/C++ way: char *s = "A" "B"; means the same as char *s = "AB";
I am not a big fan of that syntax but it is widely used. A backslash at the end of the line leads to errors when you accidently put a space after the backslash and the editor doesn't flag it. Bill Dunlap TIBCO Software wdunlap tibco.com On Wed, Jun 14, 2017 at 3:58 AM, Andreas Kersting <r-de...@akersting.de> wrote: > Hi, > > I would really like to have a way to split long string literals across > multiple lines in R. > > Currently, if a string literal spans multiple lines, there is no way to > inhibit the introduction of newline characters: > > > "aaa > + bbb" > [1] "aaa\nbbb" > > > If a line ends with a backslash, it is just ignored: > > > "aaa\ > + bbb" > [1] "aaa\nbbb" > > > We could use this fact to implement string splitting in a fairly > backward-compatible way, since currently such trailing backslashes should > hardly be used as they do not have any effect. The attached patch makes the > parser ignore a newline character directly following a backslash: > > > "aaa\ > + bbb" > [1] "aaabbb" > > > I personally would also prefer if leading blanks (spaces and tabs) in the > second line are ignored to allow for proper indentation: > > > "aaa \ > + bbb" > [1] "aaa bbb" > > > "aaa\ > + \ bbb" > [1] "aaa bbb" > > This is also implemented by this patch. > > > An alternative approach could be to have something like > > ("aaa " > "bbb") > > or > > ("aaa ", > "bbb") > > be interpreted as "aaa bbb". > > I don't know the ins and outs of the parser of R (hence: please very > carefully review the attached patch), but I guess this would be more work > to implement!? > > > What do you think? Is there anybody else who is missing this feature in > the first place? > > Regards, > Andreas > > ______________________________________________ > R-devel@r-project.org mailing list > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel > [[alternative HTML version deleted]] ______________________________________________ R-devel@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel