digitalmars.D - Putting quotes in wysiwyg strings
- Bill Baxter <dnewsgroup billbaxter.com> Nov 22 2006
- Lionello Lunesu <lio lunesu.remove.com> Nov 22 2006
- Bill Baxter <wbaxter gmail.com> Nov 22 2006
- Lionello Lunesu <lio lunesu.remove.com> Nov 22 2006
- Bill Baxter <wbaxter gmail.com> Nov 22 2006
- renox <renaud.hebert free.fr> Nov 22 2006
- Wolven <ra wolven.net> Nov 22 2006
- Lionello Lunesu <lio lunesu.remove.com> Nov 22 2006
- Hasan Aljudy <hasan.aljudy gmail.com> Nov 22 2006
- renox <renaud.hebert free.fr> Nov 23 2006
- Bill Baxter <wbaxter gmail.com> Nov 23 2006
- "John S. Skogtvedt" <jss2k2 chello.no> Nov 22 2006
- Hasan Aljudy <hasan.aljudy gmail.com> Nov 22 2006
- "John S. Skogtvedt" <jss2k2 chello.no> Nov 23 2006
- Stewart Gordon <smjg_1998 yahoo.com> Nov 23 2006
- Bill Baxter <wbaxter gmail.com> Nov 23 2006
From the spec: 'There are no escape sequences inside r" ":'
Shouldn't there be an exception for the " character itself?
Right now the only way to put the quote into a wysiwyg string like
foo"bar
is something like:
r"foo" ~'"'~ r"bar";
or
r"foo" "\"" r"bar";
or
r"foo" `"` r"bar";
It would be a lot nicer if one could just do:
r"foo\"bar";
And before you say I should just use ``, I'm writing an automatic
resource wrapper that turns any text file into an embedded string, so I
don't know ahead of time what's going to be in the string, and it may
contain both `'s and "'s.
The goal is that the output string should look as much like the original
text as possible. One main use will be for embedding short script
programs (like lua or minid) inside a D executable.
This:
if (k & e.Shift) { ret ~= " `"` r"Shift" `"` r"; }
if (k & e.Ctrl) { if (ret) ret~=" `"` r"|" `"` r"; ret ~= " `"`
r"Ctrl" `"` r"; }
if (k & e.Alt) { if (ret) ret~=" `"` r"|" `"` r"; ret ~= " `"`
r"Alt" `"`
r"; }
if (!ret) ret = " `"` r"None" `"` r";
definitely does not look very much like the original code. :-(
But this does look reasonably close:
if (k & e.Shift) { ret ~= \"Shift\"; }
if (k & e.Ctrl) { if (ret) ret~=\"|\"; ret ~= \"Ctrl\"; }
if (k & e.Alt) { if (ret) ret~=\"|\"; ret ~= \"Alt\"; }
if (!ret) ret = \"None\";
--bb
Nov 22 2006
Bill Baxter wrote:From the spec: 'There are no escape sequences inside r" ":' Shouldn't there be an exception for the " character itself? Right now the only way to put the quote into a wysiwyg string like foo"bar is something like: r"foo" ~'"'~ r"bar"; or r"foo" "\"" r"bar"; or r"foo" `"` r"bar"; It would be a lot nicer if one could just do: r"foo\"bar";
I'd prefer doubling the ", similar to program arguments on the command line: r"foo""bar" (This already compiles, but generates foobar instead of foo"bar; if you want foobar with the suggested behavior, you could add a space: r"foo" "bar") L.
Nov 22 2006
Bill Baxter <wbaxter gmail.com> Lionello Lunesu wrote:Bill Baxter wrote:From the spec: 'There are no escape sequences inside r" ":' Shouldn't there be an exception for the " character itself? [...]
I'd prefer doubling the ", similar to program arguments on the command line: r"foo""bar" (This already compiles, but generates foobar instead of foo"bar; if you want foobar with the suggested behavior, you could add a space: r"foo" "bar")
You're right. That would definitely be the cleaner solution. If you use \ to escape the quote then you need yet another rule to handle the case where you want a literal \ followed by a " in the string. --bb
Nov 22 2006
Oh, by the way:
"
if (k & e.Shift) { ret ~= ""Shift""; }
if (k & e.Ctrl) { if (ret) ret~=""|""; ret ~= ""Ctrl""; }
if (k & e.Alt) { if (ret) ret~=""|""; ret ~= ""Alt""; }
if (!ret) ret = ""None"";
"
;)
Nov 22 2006
Lionello Lunesu wrote:Oh, by the way: " if (k & e.Shift) { ret ~= ""Shift""; } if (k & e.Ctrl) { if (ret) ret~=""|""; ret ~= ""Ctrl""; } if (k & e.Alt) { if (ret) ret~=""|""; ret ~= ""Alt""; } if (!ret) ret = ""None""; " ;)
Yep, that looks quite reasonable (with the addition of an 'r' in front). I wish it worked. :-( --bb
Nov 22 2006
Bah, I feel that putting any fixed delimitor for string is bond to create a problem for some user whether it is simple, double quotes.. Why not reuse a good idea from the shell: <<FOO .... FOO putting a customisable end-of-text word can avoid many problem. Sure this makes the parser a bit more complex, but not that much.. So for D it would be something like: r <word>" ... "<word> where word is some text without space or r(<word>)" .... "<word> or the same thing but with a keyword "raw" instead of r. Comments? RenoX
Nov 22 2006
== Quote from renox (renaud.hebert free.fr)'s articleBah, I feel that putting any fixed delimitor for string is bond to create a problem for some user whether it is simple, double quotes.. Why not reuse a good idea from the shell: <<FOO .... FOO putting a customisable end-of-text word can avoid many problem. Sure this makes the parser a bit more complex, but not that much.. So for D it would be something like: r <word>" ... "<word> where word is some text without space or r(<word>)" .... "<word> or the same thing but with a keyword "raw" instead of r. Comments? RenoX
Well RenoX, I, for one, support your idea. Years ago, I wondered why they didn't pick some better character than a single and\or double quotes to bracket literals with. Personally, I like the minature << and >> characters (ASCII decimal 171 and 187). You would still need some method of including those characters within a literal but at least you wouldn't have the problem with single and double quotes which are used in standard English text all the time... :)
Nov 22 2006
Wolven wrote:I, for one, support your idea. Years ago, I wondered why they didn't pick some better character than a single and\or double quotes to bracket literals with. Personally, I like the minature << and >> characters (ASCII decimal 171 and 187).
I'm sorry to nitpick, but that's not ASCII. "ALT-171", "-187" depend on the PC's code page.. I would definitely not be smart to pick characters outside the ASCII range (0-127) L.
Nov 22 2006
renox wrote:Bah, I feel that putting any fixed delimitor for string is bond to create a problem for some user whether it is simple, double quotes.. Why not reuse a good idea from the shell: <<FOO .... FOO putting a customisable end-of-text word can avoid many problem. Sure this makes the parser a bit more complex, but not that much.. So for D it would be something like: r <word>" ... "<word> where word is some text without space or r(<word>)" .... "<word> or the same thing but with a keyword "raw" instead of r. Comments? RenoX
Walter likes to keep the lexer independent of the parser. I don't understand your suggestion very well, but it seems to me that it will make the lexer dependent on the parser, and maybe even on the semantic analyzer. Well, depending on how do you define these "words".
Nov 22 2006
== Quote from Hasan Aljudy (hasan.aljudy gmail.com)'s articlerenox wrote:Bah, I feel that putting any fixed delimitor for string is bond to create a problem for some user whether it is simple, double quotes.. Why not reuse a good idea from the shell: <<FOO .... FOO putting a customisable end-of-text word can avoid many problem. Sure this makes the parser a bit more complex, but not that much.. So for D it would be something like: r <word>" ... "<word> where word is some text without space or r(<word>)" .... "<word> or the same thing but with a keyword "raw" instead
Comments?
Walter likes to keep the lexer independent of the parser. I don't understand your suggestion very well, but it seems to me that it will make the lexer dependent on the parser, and maybe even on the semantic analyzer. Well, depending on how do you define these "words".
Do you know 'here strings' in shell/Perl? My suggestion is that D could provide the same thing (with a syntax more D-like of course) instead of trying to find the "mythical delimiter" for wysiwyg strings which would please everyone as it doesn't exist.. I'm not sure if 'here strings' makes the lexer dependant on the parser or not, I must admit that I'm not very good at grokking compilers. renoX
Nov 23 2006
renox wrote:Bah, I feel that putting any fixed delimitor for string is bond to create a problem for some user whether it is simple, double quotes.. Why not reuse a good idea from the shell: <<FOO .... FOO putting a customisable end-of-text word can avoid many problem. Sure this makes the parser a bit more complex, but not that much.. So for D it would be something like: r <word>" ... "<word> where word is some text without space or r(<word>)" .... "<word> or the same thing but with a keyword "raw" instead of r. Comments?
I wouldn't mind that, having gotten used to such "here-is documents" in languages like Perl and PHP. --bb
Nov 23 2006
Lionello Lunesu skrev:Oh, by the way: " if (k & e.Shift) { ret ~= ""Shift""; } if (k & e.Ctrl) { if (ret) ret~=""|""; ret ~= ""Ctrl""; } if (k & e.Alt) { if (ret) ret~=""|""; ret ~= ""Alt""; } if (!ret) ret = ""None""; " ;)
r'''if (k & e.Shift) { ret ~= "Shift"; } if (k & e.Ctrl) { if (ret) ret~="|"; ret ~= "Ctrl"; } if (k & e.Alt) { if (ret) ret~="|"; ret ~= "Alt"; } if (!ret) ret = "None"''' or: r"""if (k & e.Shift) { ret ~= "Shift"; } if (k & e.Ctrl) { if (ret) ret~="|"; ret ~= "Ctrl"; } if (k & e.Alt) { if (ret) ret~="|"; ret ~= "Alt"; } if (!ret) ret = "None\""""
Nov 22 2006
John S. Skogtvedt wrote:Lionello Lunesu skrev:Oh, by the way: " if (k & e.Shift) { ret ~= ""Shift""; } if (k & e.Ctrl) { if (ret) ret~=""|""; ret ~= ""Ctrl""; } if (k & e.Alt) { if (ret) ret~=""|""; ret ~= ""Alt""; } if (!ret) ret = ""None""; " ;)
r'''if (k & e.Shift) { ret ~= "Shift"; } if (k & e.Ctrl) { if (ret) ret~="|"; ret ~= "Ctrl"; } if (k & e.Alt) { if (ret) ret~="|"; ret ~= "Alt"; } if (!ret) ret = "None"''' or: r"""if (k & e.Shift) { ret ~= "Shift"; } if (k & e.Ctrl) { if (ret) ret~="|"; ret ~= "Ctrl"; } if (k & e.Alt) { if (ret) ret~="|"; ret ~= "Alt"; } if (!ret) ret = "None\""""
but if D has ''' or """ the problem will still manifest in the same way!! counter example code: auto x = """hey!''"""; auto y = '''yo!'''; //did you think you can use ` to do this? auto z = """ oi ` oi """;
Nov 22 2006
Hasan Aljudy skrev:John S. Skogtvedt wrote:Lionello Lunesu skrev:Oh, by the way: " if (k & e.Shift) { ret ~= ""Shift""; } if (k & e.Ctrl) { if (ret) ret~=""|""; ret ~= ""Ctrl""; } if (k & e.Alt) { if (ret) ret~=""|""; ret ~= ""Alt""; } if (!ret) ret = ""None""; " ;)
r'''if (k & e.Shift) { ret ~= "Shift"; } if (k & e.Ctrl) { if (ret) ret~="|"; ret ~= "Ctrl"; } if (k & e.Alt) { if (ret) ret~="|"; ret ~= "Alt"; } if (!ret) ret = "None"''' or: r"""if (k & e.Shift) { ret ~= "Shift"; } if (k & e.Ctrl) { if (ret) ret~="|"; ret ~= "Ctrl"; } if (k & e.Alt) { if (ret) ret~="|"; ret ~= "Alt"; } if (!ret) ret = "None\""""
but if D has ''' or """ the problem will still manifest in the same way!! counter example code: auto x = """hey!''"""; auto y = '''yo!'''; //did you think you can use ` to do this? auto z = """ oi ` oi """;
auto z = " oi ` oi ";
Nov 23 2006
Bill Baxter wrote:From the spec: 'There are no escape sequences inside r" ":' Shouldn't there be an exception for the " character itself?
That would defeat the whole point.Right now the only way to put the quote into a wysiwyg string like foo"bar is something like: r"foo" ~'"'~ r"bar"; or r"foo" "\"" r"bar"; or r"foo" `"` r"bar";
You missed off r"foo" \" r"bar";It would be a lot nicer if one could just do: r"foo\"bar";
Then how would one put a backslash at the end of a wysiwyg string? <snip>The goal is that the output string should look as much like the original text as possible. One main use will be for embedding short script programs (like lua or minid) inside a D executable. This: if (k & e.Shift) { ret ~= " `"` r"Shift" `"` r"; } if (k & e.Ctrl) { if (ret) ret~=" `"` r"|" `"` r"; ret ~= " `"` r"Ctrl" `"` r"; } if (k & e.Alt) { if (ret) ret~=" `"` r"|" `"` r"; ret ~= " `"` r"Alt" `"` r"; } if (!ret) ret = " `"` r"None" `"` r"; definitely does not look very much like the original code. :-(
I see now. Do you read the input line by line? If so, you could detect whether each line contains '"' or '`', and switch between r"..." and `...` at the beginning of the line if necessary. You'll only need such messy code as the above for lines that contain both characters. BTW I've used the search and replace technique before. See http://smjg.port5.com/wwwep/quines/d.html Stewart. -- -----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK----- Version: 3.1 GCS/M d- s:- C++ a->--- UB P+ L E W++ N+++ o K- w++ O? M V? PS- PE- Y? PGP- t- 5? X? R b DI? D G e++++ h-- r-- !y ------END GEEK CODE BLOCK------ My e-mail is valid but not my primary mailbox. Please keep replies on the 'group where everyone may benefit.
Nov 23 2006
Stewart Gordon wrote:Bill Baxter wrote: You missed off r"foo" \" r"bar";
Thanks. Didn't know that would work.It would be a lot nicer if one could just do: r"foo\"bar";
Then how would one put a backslash at the end of a wysiwyg string?
Yeh, using "" for " would be better, as Lionello pointed out. The only problem is that it changes the meaning of r"""" from an empty string (currently) to a string Python has r-strings too, and their rules are really wacky. \" escapes the quote charater, *but* the backslash still appears in the output. And r"\" is not possible. At least D's rule is easy to remember!I see now. Do you read the input line by line? If so, you could detect whether each line contains '"' or '`', and switch between r"..." and `...` at the beginning of the line if necessary. You'll only need such messy code as the above for lines that contain both characters.
I think I should just accept that raw strings are not the right tool for this job. I'll just stick with regular strings as the default and hope for Perl-ish "here documents" someday. --bb
Nov 23 2006