Re: Make awk more friendly to multiline function declaration

[Manuel Collado]

El 27/03/2022 a las 13:57, Peng Yu escribió:
> I see the following error.
>
> $ awk 'function f(x
> , y) {
>    return x+y
> }
> BEGIN { print f(1, 2) }'
> awk: cmd. line:2: function f(x
> awk: cmd. line:2:             ^ unexpected newline or end of string
>
> If I move the comma before y to the line of x, the error disappears.
>
> Adding a backslash after x also solves the problem, but it seems that this
> requirement is artificial. Because the parentheses enclose the arguments x
> and y, there is no way that people should mistake them as being separate
> statements. Therefore, I think the grammar of awk should be made more
> user-friendly, in this case, by removing the requirement of backslash after
> "x" when there is a comma in the next line. Does this suggestion make sense?

I don't think so. An EOL means the end of a statement, except if there 
is a clear indication that it will be continued in the next line. In 
your example the backslash is not necessary. Just put the comma at the 
end of the first line instead of at the beginning of the second line:

$ awk 'function f(x,
 y) {
  return x+y
}
BEGIN { print f(1, 2) }'
3

Regards.
--
Manuel Collado - http://mcollado.z15.es