[erlang-questions] atoms with newlines

[Richard A. O'Keefe]

On 19/02/2014, at 10:33 AM, Vlad Dumitrescu wrote:
> Eshell V5.10.4  (abort with ^G)
> 1> 'foo\n\
> 1> bar'.
> 'foo\n\nbar'
> 
> I had expected that <backslash><newline> would
> - be rejected as a syntax error, or
> - be discarded like in C and Prolog.
> 
> I did _not_ expect it to turn into <newline>.
> 
> 
> Actually, what I was referring to was that that last backslash isn't really needed at all.

No, the last backslash IS needed because I *don't* want
the newline.  In ISO Prolog I can write
	|p('foo\|
	|bar\|
	|zoo').'|
where the vertical bars show record boundaries,
and get the same effect as
	|p('foobarzoo').|

You are concerned about atoms that include newline characters.
I am concerned about atoms that for one reason or another
need to be split over lines WITHOUT introducing newline characters.

I just want \<newline> to work sensibly and to be so documented.