Re: [ jEdit-users ] perl HEREDOC syntax color glitch

[mike d. <md...@je...>]

begin Chris Petersen quotation:
> I had to make 2 regex matches, to account for the <<"end here" as well
> as <<end_here (can't start with a number or whitespace) syntax.  Perl
> also allows for a "<< x 10" to indicate "next 10 lines", but I didn't
> know how to make jEdit match that syntax, so I left it off.

I don't think this is correct. First of all, the only references I could
find to this syntax were from old version of the perldata man page (e.g.
http://www.mit.edu:8001/perl/perldata.html, from Perl 5.000 I think):

	A line-oriented form of quoting is based on the shell here-doc
	syntax. Following a << you specify a string to terminate the
	quoted material, and all lines following the current line down
	to the terminating string are the value of the item. The
	terminating string may be either an identifier (a word), or some
	quoted text. If quoted, the type of quotes you use determines
	the treatment of the text, just as in regular quoting. An
	unquoted identifier works like double quotes. There must be no
	space between the << and the identifier. (If you put a space it
	will be treated as a null identifier, which is valid, and
	matches the first blank line--see Merry Christmas example
	below.) The terminating string must appear by itself (unquoted
	and with no surrounding whitespace) on the terminating line.

            print <<EOF;        # same as above
        The price is $Price.
        EOF

            print <<"EOF";        # same as above
        The price is $Price.
        EOF

            print << x 10;        # Legal but discouraged.  Use <<"".
        Merry Christmas!

            print <<`EOC`;        # execute commands
        echo hi there
        echo lo there
        EOC

In particular, notice the parenthetical "If you put a space it will be
treated as a null identifier, which is valid, and matches the first
blank line--see Merry Christmas example below" and the "Legal but
discouraged" comment. This text is not in a more current version of
perldata (5.8.0).

Moreover, this construct does not take the "next 10 lines". It takes all
text up until the first blank line and applies the repetition operator
to the result. In the above case, it prints "Merry Christmas!\n" 10
times. This does in fact still work in a modern Perl.

-md