Newsgroups: comp.std.c++
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: backslash-newline inside C++ comments?
Message-ID: <1990Oct20.032049.12083@zoo.toronto.edu>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
References: <1990Oct18.230000.14131@twinsun.com> <1990Oct19.165355.28351@nntp-server.caltech.edu>
Date: Sat, 20 Oct 90 03:20:49 GMT

In article <1990Oct19.165355.28351@nntp-server.caltech.edu> woody@tybalt.caltech.edu (William Edward Woody) writes:
>...God help me if I know why you'd ever want to *use*
>such a construction...

I believe the main reason given for generalizing backslash-newline -- which
used to be just for string continuation -- was to help programs that build
or filter C source and want to limit line length.  Given this, it is
important that you be able to cut a line *anywhere* with backslash-newline,
so that such programs don't have to do full tokenizing just to decide where
it's legal to break a line.
-- 
The type syntax for C is essentially   | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
unparsable.             --Rob Pike     |  henry@zoo.toronto.edu   utzoo!henry