http://d.puremagic.com/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=2658

           Summary: Remove EscapeString literals.
           Product: D
           Version: unspecified
          Platform: All
        OS/Version: All
            Status: NEW
          Severity: enhancement
          Priority: P2
         Component: DMD
        AssignedTo: bugzilla@digitalmars.com
        ReportedBy: clugdbug@yahoo.com.au


The ability to create escape strings is a waste of the backslash character.
"hello world" \n
is not sufficiently superior to
"hello world\n"


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http://d.puremagic.com/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=2658





------- Comment #1 from shro8822@vandals.uidaho.edu  2009-02-13 11:42 -------

Try that again with several different \ things in the string. it quickly get unreadable.


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http://d.puremagic.com/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=2658





------- Comment #2 from ary@esperanto.org.ar  2009-02-13 11:55 -------
Can you provide an example? Whenever I read a separated \n or \t it seems like it doesn't belong to the string and it confuses me, it makes it more unreadable.


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http://d.puremagic.com/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=2658





------- Comment #3 from shro8822@vandals.uidaho.edu  2009-02-13 13:25 -------
Just to clarify, I /don't/ like the suggestion.


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http://d.puremagic.com/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=2658





------- Comment #4 from clugdbug@yahoo.com.au  2009-02-16 05:38 -------
C has got by with it perfectly well for an awful long time.


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http://d.puremagic.com/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=2658





------- Comment #5 from jarrett.billingsley@gmail.com  2009-02-16 10:23 -------
So has virtually every other language.  I don't think I have *ever* seen the backslash string literals used in any D source.  I doubt most people even know of their existence.


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http://d.puremagic.com/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=2658





------- Comment #6 from shro8822@vandals.uidaho.edu  2009-02-16 13:12 -------

I use them often when for literals of length 1. E.g.

return stringVar ~ \n;


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http://d.puremagic.com/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=2658





------- Comment #7 from wbaxter@gmail.com  2009-02-16 19:21 -------
(In reply to comment #6)
> I use them often when for literals of length 1. E.g.
> 
> return stringVar ~ \n;

That's no where near worth the price of giving up a whole symbol in my opinion.

But I think such a change should probably be bundled with an agreement on what to actually do with the freed up character.  If the syntax is removed and D never does anything with it, then that's a waste.  \n is not useless, it's just an underperforming use of \.  What to do with it should be decided upon before giving it the axe.  (lambdas were suggested somewhere).


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http://d.puremagic.com/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=2658





------- Comment #8 from maxmo@pochta.ru  2009-02-18 05:11 -------
I also don't like these escaped chars hanging around on their own.
Lambdas are expected to be just a minor syntax sugar for delegate literals:
return statement and parameter types will be removed.


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http://d.puremagic.com/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=2658





------- Comment #9 from bugzilla@digitalmars.com  2009-02-20 21:17 -------
It's a good idea to remove them. The feature didn't turn out to be interesting or useful, and it's time to clean out some detritus.


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