Re: [RFD] Expanded Pretty Format Placeholders Proposal

[Will Palmer <wmpalmer@gmail.com>]

On Fri, 2011-03-11 at 00:47 +0000, Will Palmer wrote:
..snip
> For my own purposes (conditional formats), I'd like to see the ability
> to embed an entire sub-format within a placeholder. Clearly this would
> complicate the parser quite a bit (we wouldn't be able to just look for
> a closing ")", for example), but I think the flexibility makes it work
> it. To achieve this in terms of a specification to shoot for, we can
> simply say that any embedded "%(" must be terminated by its own ")" to
> be valid. eg:
> 	%(foo-condition: %(format: %H, aka %h), %H )


of course, this conflicts with the need to embed a literal ")" within a
sub-format. The simplest option for this would be to either allow %) as
an escape, as with %%. Even simpler, of course, would be %x29, but this
seems needlessly obscure. The only objection I have to %) is "It's
ugly". To me, %(format: "this is a paren: )") is easier to read, but
that would just be moving the problem around, adding the necessity of
the just-as-ugly-or-moreso %", or alternatively C-style \" and \\.
So I think that %) will be the best option.


> 
> -- Will
>