From: "nobu (Nobuyoshi Nakada)" Date: 2012-12-26T05:52:18+09:00 Subject: [ruby-core:51137] [ruby-trunk - Feature #4513] allow whitespace following EOL continuation backslash Issue #4513 has been updated by nobu (Nobuyoshi Nakada). Priority changed from Normal to Low It is easy to change, but I doubt if it is useful. ---------------------------------------- Feature #4513: allow whitespace following EOL continuation backslash https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/issues/4513#change-35076 Author: Rich_Morin (Rich Morin) Status: Assigned Priority: Low Assignee: nobu (Nobuyoshi Nakada) Category: core Target version: next minor =begin In a few programming languages, the displayed or printed program can hide critical syntactic and/or semantic information. For example, in make(1) and Python, the difference between initial tabs and spaces can cause bugs that are not visually apparent. Ruby has a minor instance of this problem, in that spaces or tabs between a backslash and the EOL will prevent the line from being continued: >> a \ ?> = 2 => 2 >> b \ SyntaxError: compile error (irb):3: syntax error, unexpected $undefined, expecting $end from (irb):3 Could Ruby open up its syntax to allow any number of intervening spaces or tabs before the EOL? =end -- http://bugs.ruby-lang.org/