Wrapping up the first two courses
John Rose
john.r.rose at oracle.com
Thu Apr 25 22:05:39 UTC 2019
On Apr 25, 2019, at 2:45 PM, John Rose <john.r.rose at oracle.com> wrote:
>
> Whether \LineTerminator also gobbles up following
> horizontal space is a separate question. But if space
> or tab can be escaped, then it's trivial to indicate
> a space or tab that should not be gobbled by \LT.
> You just escape it. And since LT is a 2D feature,
> it is not wrong to consider allowing it to gobble
> in 2 dimensions.
P.P.S. I skipped a step here. If treated *exactly*
like the lexically significant characters " \ then
LineTerminator should escape to *itself*. It's
a second move to have it escape to something
that provides control over program layout,
by gobbling non-payload space used only
to control format. Such a move is not forced,
but it is very likely, given that "\n" is already
an escape sequence for a newline, and LineTerminator
also (I assume) is translated to a newline.
Thus, \LineTerminator is (a) a candidate
for escaping given its new status in MLSs,
and (b) a further candidate for use in layout
control, given pre-existing coverage by \n
and common precedent in other languages.
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