From: David Alan Black <dblack@...>
Date: 2001-01-28T09:29:20+09:00
Subject: [ruby-talk:9993] Re: line continuation

On Sun, 28 Jan 2001, Harry Ohlsen wrote:

> >A statement break into mutliple lines if it is not complete,
> >i.e. "if the last token on a line is an operator or comma".
> >But you can also use \ as the last character on the line, to
> >continue on the next line.
> >
> >a = 2 +
> >    3
> >is equivalent to a=2+3
> >
> >a = 2  \
> >    + 3
> >
> >here you need the \ at the end of the line.
> 
> While it's nice that you can do this, can someone explain why it is
> that the Ruby parser can't work out that a statement is not finished,
> as, say, a C++ or Java parser can?

Because the code layout is, in many cases, the *only* information
about how the code should parse.  This is the price we pay for not
having to type semicolons.

Think of it this way: if we wrote sentences without periods (and
without starting with a capital letter :-), we'd probably need to put
a blank line between every two sentences in order to parse them
correctly.  (Blank line for us being the equivalent, in this analogy,
of newline for Ruby.)


David

-- 
David Alan Black
home: dblack@candle.superlink.net
work: blackdav@shu.edu
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