https://issues.dlang.org/show_bug.cgi?id=13480

--- Comment #1 from Kenji Hara <k.hara.pg@gmail.com> ---
(In reply to Jakob Ovrum from comment #0)
> writefln statement #2 and #3 don't make any sense. Formatting characters and strings using the element markup style (`formatElement`), which forces single and double quotes around the character or string respectively, defeats the purpose of range-based formatting, which allows you to customize the fluff around each element.

If you want to stop automatic element quoting, you can use "%-(".

void main()
{
    auto ror = ["one", "two", "three"];
    writefln("%-(%s%| %)", [1, 2, 3]); // 1 2 3
    writefln("%-(%s%| %)", "abc");     // a b c
    writefln("%-(%s%|, %)", ror);      // one, two, three
}

It's documented in: http://dlang.org/phobos/std_format

> Inside a compound format specifier, strings and characters are escaped automatically. To avoid this behavior, add '-' flag to "%(".

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https://issues.dlang.org/show_bug.cgi?id=13480

Jakob Ovrum <jakobovrum@gmail.com> changed:

           What    |Removed                     |Added
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
           Severity|normal                      |enhancement

--- Comment #2 from Jakob Ovrum <jakobovrum@gmail.com> ---
(In reply to Kenji Hara from comment #1)
> If you want to stop automatic element quoting, you can use "%-(".
> 
> void main()
> {
>     auto ror = ["one", "two", "three"];
>     writefln("%-(%s%| %)", [1, 2, 3]); // 1 2 3
>     writefln("%-(%s%| %)", "abc");     // a b c
>     writefln("%-(%s%|, %)", ror);      // one, two, three
> }
> 
> It's documented in: http://dlang.org/phobos/std_format
> 
> > Inside a compound format specifier, strings and characters are escaped automatically. To avoid this behavior, add '-' flag to "%(".

Thanks, nice to know it's possible to work around.

However, I don't think this flag should need to exist.

If strings were simply not quoted, one could get quoting by doing the much more intuitive explicit quoting: `%("%s"%|, %)`. Using '-' is just a hack - it has nothing to do with left-justification and thus the reader has to look it up to know what it does. We should follow the principle of least surprise here, by formatting the string as-is unless quoting is added by the user.

(changed severity to enhancement)

--

https://issues.dlang.org/show_bug.cgi?id=13480

--- Comment #3 from Kenji Hara <k.hara.pg@gmail.com> ---
(In reply to Jakob Ovrum from comment #2)
> Thanks, nice to know it's possible to work around.
> 
> However, I don't think this flag should need to exist.
> 
> If strings were simply not quoted, one could get quoting by doing the much more intuitive explicit quoting: `%("%s"%|, %)`. Using '-' is just a hack - it has nothing to do with left-justification and thus the reader has to look it up to know what it does. We should follow the principle of least surprise here, by formatting the string as-is unless quoting is added by the user.

Handmade quoting is not enough for strings which contain double-quote
character.
See:

import std.stdio;
void main() {
  string s = `Hello "D" world!`;
  writefln("[%(%s%)]", [s]);
}

will output:
["Hello \"D\" world!"]

By design, std.format.formatValue functions stringize values by using unformattable representation with unformatValue functions by default. That's the reason why automatic quoting is done by default.

--

https://issues.dlang.org/show_bug.cgi?id=13480

Jakob Ovrum <jakobovrum@gmail.com> changed:

           What    |Removed                     |Added
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
             Status|NEW                         |RESOLVED
         Resolution|---                         |INVALID

--- Comment #4 from Jakob Ovrum <jakobovrum@gmail.com> ---
(In reply to Kenji Hara from comment #3)
> (In reply to Jakob Ovrum from comment #2)
> > Thanks, nice to know it's possible to work around.
> > 
> > However, I don't think this flag should need to exist.
> > 
> > If strings were simply not quoted, one could get quoting by doing the much more intuitive explicit quoting: `%("%s"%|, %)`. Using '-' is just a hack - it has nothing to do with left-justification and thus the reader has to look it up to know what it does. We should follow the principle of least surprise here, by formatting the string as-is unless quoting is added by the user.
> 
> Handmade quoting is not enough for strings which contain double-quote
> character.
> See:
> 
> import std.stdio;
> void main() {
>   string s = `Hello "D" world!`;
>   writefln("[%(%s%)]", [s]);
> }
> 
> will output:
> ["Hello \"D\" world!"]
> 
> By design, std.format.formatValue functions stringize values by using unformattable representation with unformatValue functions by default. That's the reason why automatic quoting is done by default.

OK, good point. Thanks for explaining!

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