String literal with line breaks in Tcl

Question

I want to have a string in my source code that consists of multiple lines (i.e contains LF characters).

The solution should:

1. Put each data line on a separate source line.

   # Bad:
   set lines "line 1\nline 2\nline 3"
   

2. Not add empty leading or trailing lines:

   # Bad:
   set lines {
   line 1
   line 2
   line 3
   }
   puts [split $lines \n]
   # Prints: {} {line 1} {line 2} {line 3} {}
   

3. Not have hanging lines:

   # Bad:
   set lines {line 1
   line 2
   line 3}
   

What I have came up with so far:

set lines {
line 1
line 2
line 3
}
set lines [string range $lines 1 end-1]

Is there a better way?

Answer 1

What about:

% set lines [join [list {*}{
   "line 1"
   "line 2"
   "line 3"
}] \n]
% split $lines \n
{line 1} {line 2} {line 3}