Re: Syntax errors with the "space-before-paren" style in Ruby and SWIG

David James wrote:
> In Ruby, if you put a space before an argument parenthesis, the
> compiler emits a warning:
> "warning: don't put space before argument parentheses"
>
> This warning isn't just a style suggestion. If you put spaces before
> parentheses, the Ruby parser can choke. For example:
> out << "some string".gsub (/[\s\n]*$/, "")

Sorry, you'll have to explain if you want that "example" to demonstrate
anything to those of us not familiar with Ruby syntax.

> Perhaps we should follow the advice of the Ruby compiler, and avoid
> the "space-before-paren" style? Ruby isn't the only language which has
> trouble with the spaces. SWIG and the C-preprocessor have issues too.

Tell us about SWIG's issues (briefly).

As for the C preprocessor, I believe the only issue is that the definition of a
macro taking parameters can't have a space before the open parenthesis; we
already know and accept that so it's not an issue that causes any problems. Am
I wrong?

> If we use the "no-space-before-paren" style, we'll be able to have
> consistent function-call style throughout our entire body of source
> code, including the SWIG bindings. That'd be a great thing.

That extra bit of consistency would be no bad thing, but hardly "great", I think.

- Julian

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Received on Fri Feb 3 22:04:08 2006