use Perl

• Ambiguity (Score:2)

  by Ovid (2709)

  Each line begins with a token denoting what it describes ... The token is followed by \s+. If an item is split onto multiple lines, it is understood to continue until a new token or block break is reached.

  Maybe I missed something, but what do you do if the word 'a' is the first letter of an item split onto multiple lines? How does the parser know that's not a token?
  • Re:Ambiguity (Score:1)

    by hex (3272) on 2007.11.09 11:30 (#58959) Homepage Journal

    Ooh, good catch. As it stands, it wouldn't. The workaround is not to split a line before an "a" :-)
    
    If anyone can think of a patch to the spec to fix that without adding complexity (I can't off the top of my head) I'd be interested to hear it.

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    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Ovid (2709)

      As a format which could conceivably be written in other (human) languages, can you guarantee that none of them will have the same issue? Or that someone might refer to their 'd' subroutine and mess things up?

      Maybe subsequent lines could be indented or the preceding line could end in a backslash?
      • Re: (Score:1)

        by hex (3272)

        confound on IRC suggested starting continued lines with a '.', but that's more chrome to impede a quick visual scan of the document, as are backslashes. On the other hand, the backslash is a well-known line continuation indicator. I prefer though your suggestion of indenting. Leading whitespace already seems to be commonly used on CPAN to indicate a continued comment.

        a We added a new shiny feature that you'll all love:
          a magic automatic doodad configurator.
        b! A major bug got fixed. Really m