Allow functions to span multiple lines

[OAGr]

Right now functions can only be on one line. Functions can easily be >200char, so this can cause issues. I recommend that we later allow functions to be many lines.

This would require a new parser.

[quinn-dougherty]

One way of accomplishing this is to have a whole compilation pass that just strips \n and does nothing else. I can do some research and figure out what the standard is in whitespace-insensitive languages.

[umuro]

So actually. Just stripping \n might not be a good idea at all. It leads to ambiguity as long as you are not using the everything ends in ; option.

[umuro]

Although I advice the indentation option, we cannot do that with the current parser.

However, line break is just doable. We can just merge the lines with a line breaker. Easy preprocessing. And we don't need the parser yet.

[OAGr]

Thanks so much for the breakdown, that's great.
I think I like options (2) and (4) the most.

[michaeldickens]

My preference would be a variant on #3. You should be able to write a 2-line statement as

x = 1
      + 2

If the 2nd line begins with a binary operation, compiler assumes it's part of the previous line and combine them. If the combined result is not parseable, separate them out again and raise a syntax error on the 2nd line.

My 2nd choice would be #3 as originally described.

[mlochbaum]

I'd offer another variant of 3 (in addition to 2): instead of making the parser handle operators, remove line breaks that come between parentheses. It's much less likely to require maintainence as syntax is added to Squiggle.

x = (1
   + 2)

[OAGr]

You can do this with brackets now.