[fpc-devel] Using double quotes

[Mark Morgan Lloyd]

Marcos Douglas wrote:
> On Sat, Feb 27, 2016 at 6:38 AM, Mark Morgan Lloyd
> <markMLl.fpc-devel at telemetry.co.uk> wrote:
>> Marcos Douglas wrote:
>>> Is there any chance to implement in the compiler something link this?
>>>
>>> S := "
>>>   insert into t (
>>>     id, description
>>>   ) values (
>>>     1, 'foo'
>>>   )
>>> ";
>>>
>>> Did you see?
>>
>> No, I don't see. It looks like an ordinary string to me, except that you're
>> allowing it to extend over multiple lines somewhat like a unix
>> here-document.
> 
> Here are the differences:
> 
> This:
> S := "
>   insert into t (
>     id, description
>   ) values (
>     1, 'foo'
>   )
> ";
> 
> instead of this:
> S :=
>   'insert into t ( ' +
>   '  id, description ' +
>   ') values ( ' +
>   '  1, ''foo'' ' +
>   ')';

A better solution would be a variant of Format() that could define 
repeated or indeterminate parameters, and that possibly allowed C-style 
backslash escapes. In any case, looking at your usage case it's very 
common to have inline variables, and again they'd be better handled by 
Format.

Expecting somebody to rewrite the parser is probably not realistic, and 
in any event there's probably better things to do with double-quotes 
(e.g. modified semantics for Unicode).

-- 
Mark Morgan Lloyd
markMLl .AT. telemetry.co .DOT. uk

[Opinions above are the author's, not those of his employers or colleagues]