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Re: [ddlm-group] Python-type eliding for triple-quoted strings

My apologies, I sent this email instead of saving it for further
editing.  You may disregard the contents until I resend it at a later
date.

James.

On Tue, Jan 4, 2011 at 12:17 AM, James Hester <jamesrhester@gmail.com> wrote:
> I am going to divide Ralf's proposal into two parts, which both
> separately solve the problem of representing every possible string in
> a CIF file.
>
> Proposal A: strings can be delimited by three quotes or three
> apostrophes ("cooked strings" hereafter) or else by three quotes or
> three apostrophes immediately preceded by the letter 'r' ("raw
> strings").  Both cooked and raw strings define two special sequences:
> <backslash><delimiter> and <backslash><backslash>.  When these
> sequences are encountered in a cooked string, the first backslash is
> removed and the second character no longer has any special meaning
> (delimiter or elide).  When these sequences are encountered in a raw
> string, they function as for a cooked string, but the initial
> <backslash> is not removed. Note that I have deliberately excluded the
> following escape sequences from this proposal as they are not
> syntactically relevant: \newline, \a, \b, \f,\n,\r,\t,\v,\ooo, \xhh
>
> Under Proposal A, the sequence <backslash><delimiter> is represented
> as <backslash><backslash><backslash><delimiter> in a cooked string.
> In a raw string, it may be left as <backslash><delimiter>.  In a raw
> string, a string terminating with <delimiter> must contain
> <backslash><delimiter> as the last two characters.  A raw string
> cannot finish with a single <backslash>.
>
> Proposal B: strings can be delimited by three quotes or three
> apostrophes or else by three quotes or three apostrophes immediately
> preceded by the letter 'u' ("unicode strings").  In a non-unicode
> string, no special behaviour is defined (as in the current CIF2
> proposal).  In a Unicode string, the escapes \uxxxx and \Uxxxxxx are
> defined as the corresponding Unicode code point.
>
>
> I believe that this scheme is not particularly appropriate for the CIF
> context, which is unsurprising given that Python literals are designed
> for embedding in programs and CIF literals are intended to encapsulate
> arbitrary data.  My criticisms are as follows:
>
> (1) Many of the <backslash><character> sequences in non-raw strings
> already have a meaning as IUCr markup or LaTeX markup
> (2) The lexer must be informed of the
> (2) Raw strings will include the <backslash><delimiter> sequence in
> the datavalue, meaning that the
>
>
> --
> T +61 (02) 9717 9907
> F +61 (02) 9717 3145
> M +61 (04) 0249 4148
>



-- 
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