Chapter 30. Newline Separators

Use newlines as statement separators.

first statementsecond statementthird statement

30.1 How It Works

Using newlines to mark the end of a statement is a common feature of programming languages. This fits very well with Delimiter-Directed Translation since newlines are used as the main delimiter to break up the input. As a result I have nothing to add here for that context.

With Syntax-Directed Translation, however, newline separators are rather more tricky, introducing a number of subtle traps that can trip you up. This section will hopefully point out of few of those traps.

(Of course it’s possible to use newlines for a syntactic purpose other than statement separation—but I’ve yet to come across it.)

The reason ...

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