What is the purpose of a backslash at the end of a line?
Question:
Just found the following module import in a Python code:
from sqlalchemy.ext.declarative import declarative_base,
AbstractConcreteBase
I am curious about the backslash
at the end of the first line. What’s the purpose of it? Wouldn’t it be the same as the following?
from sqlalchemy.ext.declarative import declarative_base, AbstractConcreteBase
Answers:
Yep, it’s exactly the same and this is the point of the backslash — it escapes the newline, allowing this long line to be split in two. An alternative is to use parentheses:
from sqlalchemy.ext.declarative import (declarative_base,
AbstractConcreteBase)
While this is a syntax error:
from sqlalchemy.ext.declarative import declarative_base,
AbstractConcreteBase
In the context of line-oriented text, especially source code for some programming languages, it is often used at the end of a line to indicate that the trailing newline character should be ignored, so that the following line is treated as if it were part of the current line.
Just found the following module import in a Python code:
from sqlalchemy.ext.declarative import declarative_base,
AbstractConcreteBase
I am curious about the backslash at the end of the first line. What’s the purpose of it? Wouldn’t it be the same as the following?
from sqlalchemy.ext.declarative import declarative_base, AbstractConcreteBase
Yep, it’s exactly the same and this is the point of the backslash — it escapes the newline, allowing this long line to be split in two. An alternative is to use parentheses:
from sqlalchemy.ext.declarative import (declarative_base,
AbstractConcreteBase)
While this is a syntax error:
from sqlalchemy.ext.declarative import declarative_base,
AbstractConcreteBase
In the context of line-oriented text, especially source code for some programming languages, it is often used at the end of a line to indicate that the trailing newline character should be ignored, so that the following line is treated as if it were part of the current line.