From: Hugh Sasse Staff Elec Eng <hgs@...>
Date: 2000-08-08T11:53:31+01:00
Subject: [ruby-talk:04341] DRY and embedded docs.

If I have a here document in some ruby program:

print <<"END"
usage #{$0} options arguments

where option is
 -a   (or whatever)
     ....
 -z   ( i.e a whole load of these)
END

How can I get this text into a 
=begin
=end
section so I can have it as documentation, without breaking the
Don't Repeat Yourself rule?

I cannot do

print <<"END"
=begin
usage #{$0}.....
=end
END
because the =begin and =end are no longer considered documentation
by ruby.  They may be by some other program, admittedly, but they
end up in the string created by the here document, which I don't
want.  Clearly one may need to put lines beginning with = in a here
document, so ruby _is_ doing the right thing, but I cannot have the
lines considered to be both a here document and embedded documentation.

Is there a cunning way round this without generating my ruby from
m4 or some such?

	Hugh
	hgs@dmu.ac.uk