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c++cprogramming-languagesstringlanguage-design

Why must C/C++ string literal declarations be single-line?

Is there any particular reason that multi-line string literals such as the following are not permitted in C++?

string script =
"
      Some
   Formatted
 String Literal
";

I know that multi-line string literals may be created by putting a backslash before each newline. I am writing a programming language (similar to C) and would like to allow the easy creation of multi-line strings (as in the above example).

Is there any technical reason for avoiding this kind of string literal? Otherwise I would have to use a python-like string literal with a triple quote (which I don't want to do):

string script =
"""
      Some
   Formatted
 String Literal
""";

Why must C/C++ string literal declarations be single-line?

Solution

  • One has to consider that C was not written to be an "Applications" programming language but a systems programming language. It would not be inaccurate to say it was designed expressly to rewrite Unix. With that in mind, there was no EMACS or VIM and your user interfaces were serial terminals. Multiline string declarations would seem a bit pointless on a system that did not have a multiline text editor. Furthermore, string manipulation would not be a primary concern for someone looking to write an OS at that particular point in time. The traditional set of UNIX scripting tools such as AWK and SED (amongst MANY others) are a testament to the fact they weren't using C to do significant string manipulation.

    Additional considerations: it was not uncommon in the early 70s (when C was written) to submit your programs on PUNCH CARDS and come back the next day to get them. Would it have eaten up extra processing time to compile a program with multiline strings literals? Not really. It can actually be less work for the compiler. But you were going to come back for it the next day anyhow in most cases. But nobody who was filling out a punch card was going to put large amounts of text that wasn't needed in their programs.

    In a modern environment, there is probably no reason not to include multiline string literals other than designer's preference. Grammatically speaking, it's probably simpler because you don't have to take linefeeds into consideration when parsing the string literal.