How can I write multiline strings in Haskell?
HaskellHaskell Problem Overview
Let's say I have this string literal with line breaks:
file :: String
file = "the first line\nthe second line\nthe third line"
Is there any way to write it like this?
file :: String
file = "the first line
the second line
the third line"
The attempt just above leads to this error:
factor.hs:58:33:
lexical error in string/character literal at character '\n'
Failed, modules loaded: none.
Haskell Solutions
Solution 1 - Haskell
You can write multiline strings like so
x = "This is some text which we escape \
\ and unescape to keep writing"
Which prints as
"This is some text which we escape and unescape to keep writing"
If you want this to print as two lines
x = "This is some text which we escape \n\
\ and unescape to keep writing"
Which prints as
This is some text which we escape
and unescape to keep writing
Solution 2 - Haskell
Some time ago I released a library named "neat-interpolation" to solve the problem of multiline strings and interpolation using the QuasiQoutes extension. Its primary advantage over competitors is a smart management of whitespace, which takes care of interpolated multiline strings. Following is an example of how it works.
Executing the following:
{-# LANGUAGE QuasiQuotes, OverloadedStrings #-}
import NeatInterpolation (text)
import qualified Data.Text.IO
f :: Text -> Text -> Text
f a b =
[text|
function(){
function(){
$a
}
return $b
}
|]
main = Data.Text.IO.putStrLn $ f "1" "2"
will produce this (notice the reduced indentation compared to how it was declared):
function(){
function(){
1
}
return 2
}
Now let's test it with multiline string parameters:
main = Data.Text.IO.putStrLn $ f
"{\n\
\ indented line\n\
\ indented line\n\
\}"
"{\n\
\ indented line\n\
\ indented line\n\
\}"
We get
function(){
function(){
{
indented line
indented line
}
}
return {
indented line
indented line
}
}
Notice how it neatly preserved the indentation levels of lines the variable placeholders were at. The standard interpolators would have messed all the whitespace and produced something like the following instead:
function(){
function(){
{
indented line
indented line
}
}
return {
indented line
indented line
}
}
Solution 3 - Haskell
In Haskell you can type multiline strings by ending it with a backslash \ and beginning the newline with another \, just like so :
file :: String
file = "the first line\n\
\the second line\n\
\the third line\n"
Solution 4 - Haskell
I don't believe that Haskell has an easy way to do this without resorting to quasiquoting or something else. However you can mostly get what you want by using the unlines function like below. However this will result in a newline after your last line, which you may or may not care about.
file :: String
file = unlines [
"the first line",
"the second line",
"the third line"
]
Solution 5 - Haskell
Many times this facality is referred to as heredocs. Haskell does not have heredocs.
However, there are several packages that use GHC's QuasiQuotes extensions to achieve this.
Here is one I use: http://hackage.haskell.org/package/interpolatedstring-perl6-0.9.0/docs/Text-InterpolatedString-Perl6.html
Your example would look like:
file = [q|
the first line
the second line
the third line
|]
Solution 6 - Haskell
Quasiquotation examplete presented in Multi-line strings in Haskell.
{-# LANGUAGE QuasiQuotes #-}
import Text.RawString.QQ
multiline :: String
multiline = [r|<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE>Auto-generated html formated source</TITLE>
<META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=windows-1252">
</HEAD>
<BODY LINK="800080" BGCOLOR="#ffffff">
<P> </P>
<PRE>|]
raw-strings-qq is my favorite for the purpose yet.