35
Two or more physical lines may be joined into logical lines using backslash characters (
\
),
as follows: when a physical line ends in a backslash that is not part of a string literal or
comment, it is joined with the following forming a single logical line, deleting the backslash
and the following end-of-line character. For example:
if 1900 < year < 2100 and 1 <= month <= 12 \
and 1 <= day <= 31 and 0 <= hour < 24 \
and 0 <= minute < 60 and 0 <= second < 60: # Looks like a valid date
return 1
A line ending in a backslash cannot carry a comment. A backslash does not continue a
comment. A backslash does not continue a token except for string literals (i.e., tokens
other than string literals cannot be split across physical lines using a backslash). A
backslash is illegal elsewhere on a line outside a string literal.
2.1.6. Implicit line joining
Expressions in parentheses, square brackets or curly braces can be split over more than
one physical line without using backslashes. For example:
month_names = ['Januari', 'Februari', 'Maart', # These are the
'April', 'Mei', 'Juni', # Dutch names
'Juli', 'Augustus', 'September', # for the months
'Oktober', 'November', 'December'] # of the year
Implicitly continued lines can carry comments. The indentation of the continuation lines is
not important. Blank continuation lines are allowed. There is no NEWLINE token between
implicit continuation lines. Implicitly continued lines can also occur within triple-quoted
strings (see below); in that case they cannot carry comments.
2.1.7. Blank lines
A logical line that contains only spaces, tabs, formfeeds and possibly a comment, is
ignored (i.e., no NEWLINE token is generated). During interactive input of statements,
handling of a blank line may differ depending on the implementation of the read-eval-print
loop. In the standard implementation, an entirely blank logical line (i.e. one containing not
even whitespace or a comment) terminates a multi-line statement.
2.1.8. Indentation
Leading whitespace (spaces and tabs) at the beginning of a logical line is used to
compute the indentation level of the line, which in turn is used to determine the grouping
of statements.
