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From: karl@haddock.ISC.COM (Karl Heuer)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: newlines in string constants
Message-ID: <1480@haddock.ISC.COM>
Date: Fri, 23-Oct-87 11:57:07 EST
Article-I.D.: haddock.1480
Posted: Fri Oct 23 11:57:07 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 25-Oct-87 16:12:05 EST
References: <2669@xanth.UUCP> <15262@clyde.ATT.COM> <2810@xanth.UUCP> <2502@mmintl.UUCP>
Reply-To: karl@haddock.ima.isc.com (Karl Heuer)
Organization: Interactive Systems, Boston
Lines: 25

In article <2502@mmintl.UUCP> franka@mmintl.UUCP (Frank Adams) writes:
>In article <2810@xanth.UUCP> kyle@xanth.UUCP (Kyle Jones) writes:
>>I can write a pre-processer that allows me to have my multi-line
>>strings [without "\n\" continuation], but I would like to believe there's a
>>better reason than the one above for not allowing them in the language.
>
>How about the fact that they look ugly?

(That's not a fact, that's an opinion.)

I think a paragraph enclosed in quotes is *less* ugly than the same thing with
"\n\" at the end of each line, which is the least ugly way to write it now.

The idea about trailing blanks is less problematic than having embedded tabs
in a source file (which *is* legal).  The careful programmer would have to
assume that trailing blanks may be stripped, and explicitly use "\n\" if they
need to be retained.

To answer the original question: I would give you good odds that the reason
given by X3J11 would be "lack of prior art; can be done with existing
features; need not convincingly demonstrated".  Basically, ANSI C doesn't
allow it because K&R doesn't, and gratuitous improvements are outside their
charter.

Karl W. Z. Heuer (ima!haddock!karl or karl@haddock.isc.com), The Walking Lint