Re: RFC 111 (v3) Here Docs Terminators (Was Whitespace and Here Docs)

[Nathan Wiger]

Michael G Schwern wrote:
> 
> > > I'd prefer if here-docs just DWIM.
> 
> > Yes, but... what do you mean vs. what do others mean, and all these
> > problems....
> 
> Others can continue to put the here-doc tag flush left if they don't
> want this behavior.

See, this is just too inflexible. The main complaint that I've heard has
been "You can't have leading or trailing whitespace around your
terminator". This is a very common error made by everyone, and *this* is
where Perl should DWIM.

The main complaint has *not* been "Man, I wish that indenting my
terminator could tell Perl to automatically strip off that much leading
whitespace", which is what you're purporting it to be.

If we want to add this feature, which does not solve the existing
problem - and there is a problem! - then I support the new "autostrip
<<<" operator which does this.

However, this shouldn't be forced into the existing << operator, since
it prevents us from fixing a very important and annoying problem with
current here docs.

I don't mind disagreeing on a given issue, but this issue is one where
everyone has enough brains on this list to resolve reasonably. I propose
we all step back, recognize the difference between fixing problems and
adding new features, and make it so the latter doesn't prevent the
former.

-Nate