[BUG] Multiline operator concatenation is being ignored

Development Programming & Scripting Verse
, , ,
1

I’m writing the code snippet from memory, so I apologize if it does not properly compile. As far as I remember I run multiple times into this odd issue. In my codebases I set a fixed line width of 100 characters and start wrapping code into next lines if it’s exceeded.
In that sense if I have multiple arrays or string literals which I would like to merge, I start moving the + concatenation operation into next lines. However this seems to be swallowed by the compiler.

Func(): string = {
  Result := "first line"
    + "\nsecond line"
    + "\nthrid line"
    # etc.
  return Result
}

As far as I remember scenarios like this always resulted into only the first value being added to the result.

Workarounds:

Func(): string = {
  Result := "first line" + "\nsecond line" + "\nthrid line" # etc.
  return Result
}

Func(): string = {
  var Result: string = "first line" 
  set Result += "\nsecond line" 
  set Result += "\nthrid line" 
  # etc.
  return Result
}

The first workaround might not always be suitable as it could easily exceed the previously mentioned line width.
This is a critical issue as it’s extremely easy to miss und totally unintuitive. Missing string parts is relatively harmless, but missing array elements can lead to unexpected program behavior and bugs.

2

Yep it’s strange considering that it works with if statements :

RotationMultiplier := if(1 > 0)
                      then true
                      else false

Also, did you try putting the ‘+’ operator at the end of the line like this ?

Func(): string = {
  Result := "first line" +
    "\nsecond line" +
    "\nthrid line"
    # etc.
  return Result
}
3

No I have not tried it, it might actually work if my assumption about operator inference is correct.

I guess the compiler treats the + as prefix operators instead correctly indicting those as wrapped infix operators.

In general I would say that prefix or suffix operators should not permit whitespaces between them and their values while infix operators should at least prefer whitespaces for readability.

+ something # raise an error (prefix)
+something # okay (prefix)

a + b # infix (preferred)
a+b # infix 

a
+
b # okay but harder to read

some_long_name
  + something_else # okay (infix)

cc @Conan_Reis

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