Re: Formatting Strings Without Interpolating Whitespace

[TomDLux]

Why do you want to specify newlines explicitly as \n? If you are generating a significant document, why are the strings even part of the code file? Separate the text from the code and you can send out different languages; your designers can rearrange the message with insignificant change to the program.

Put message snippets into separate text files, if you need various options, laid out exactly as you want it to look. If you want to interpolate data in the middle of standard text, use one of the templating modules, some of them work for text, not just html.

[BJ_Covert_Action]

That would involve expanding this particular script's capabilities far beyond what is needed right now. Down the line I do intend to do exactly as you say (one problem of course, is that if I use external template files then I have to version control the template files if they start getting updated). However, I needed to get something out the door today, and digging through/researching templating modules while simultaneously trying to get my formats right, my parsing right, and my e-mail configuration right was going to require a lot of time that I don't have right now.

One day, if all goes well, I fully intend to evolve this into a completely modular, badass notification program. But for the time being, that amount of work would not be adding value to my immediate task at hand

So, long story short, I'm prioritizing.